Thank you shtarky.
AZ. You misunderstand what I write. I am NOT encouraging close in age shidduchim, nor am I encouraging people to do so by offering financial incentives. All I am saying is that we have managed to create a society where we have artificially created a smaller pool of boys for an increasingly larger pool of girls. As time goes on, boys are “sitting and learning” longer and longer and girls are more desperate than ever to start dating while the ink on their high school diplomas is still drying. We have to change the mindset to get more boys into the pool, not eliminate girls from the dating pool. While we are at it, we have to make sure those boys we are allowing back into the pool (who will inevitably be “younger”) are prepared to move on with their lives. It means encouraging those who are not able to sit three sedarim a day to utilize the other two, to do something to learn a parnassha whether it is college, trade school or something else. I said before and will repeat for the last time, what you are advocating is a band aid which helps sometimes, and short term, but is not solving the actual problem at hand.
Tzippi. If you discouraged girls from dating until 20-21 (which is the same thing as saying, we are incentivising shadchannim to set up “older” girls”) after they get a degree from a fast track degree mill, what should they do with their lives? Will a 4 year program suddenly be acceptable? An advanced degree? A job in a midtown firm not named cohen and shapiro? I still remember the thread in the CR titled “overeducated girls”, will the prevelant mindset expressed in that thread be changed? If not, these girls will really be unproductive and vegetate.