We frequently hear that the importance of having the necessary education and skills to earn a parnassah is overstated and there are “many” successful chareidim that have achieved financial success without even having gone to college, much less earning an advanced degree. Yes, I’m sure there are natural, self-taught entrepreneurs who have made millions but I suspect that is a very small percentage of the Chareidi tzibur. Sadly, the poverty and welfare dependency statistics for many chareidi neighborhoods and communities tells a very different story. Likewise, its true we have always had full time learners, but again, as a percentage of the total, the numbers were much lower in the pre-war alte Heim and in post-War EY and the United State than they are today. While some girls may be fortunate enough to come from affluent families who have the resources to support them, in most cases, the families are already living on the economic margin and the absurdly high costs of a chassanah and then weekly checks to to support a new son-in-law who wants to shteig 24×7 puts them over the breaking point. We need to encourage more girls to get the secular education and job skills so they can be economically self-reliant and revisit the quaint notion of finding some balance where after a few years, a kollel yungerleit will work part time to help support the family while still finding many hours a day to learn as well. That has been our historic tradition and we need to move back towards economic self-reliance across all yideshe families. There is no imperative to marry in your late teens versus early 20s so you’ve had the opportunity to get at least 2 years of college with a focus on employment skills for available jobs that can be done from home (aka computer skills for tele-working).
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