Rabbi of Berlin-
It isnt staggering. And no one is ignoring open gemorahs. These are famous gemorahs that everyone has heard before.
And you are going to argue with this, but we arent relying on others for parnassah. We are relying on Hashem. And there is nothing wrong with that. The gemorah says (you failed to quote this one) that Shevet Levi did not have to work, and Hashem provided for them. And anyone who wants to be a part of that can join.
Now you will say “but shevet levi should be a small percentage, not the thousands of people who are learning nowadays.” and I will tell you that due to assimilation and people off the derech, we ARE an extremely small percentage of learners.
And where are you getting “tens of thousands of people that are burdening the tzibbur” from? That is a gross exagerration. Majority of the people learning will only learn for a couple of years after the chasunah and go to work way before they have kids that they need to pay tuition for. Out of the rest of them (the long term learners) there is a large group that support themselves by the wife working (sometimes more than one job) and the husband bringing home kollel paychecks or tutoring. So we arent left with that many people who are “burdening the tzibbur”.
Besides, I’m really not here to argue about if one should or shouldnt learn. Everyone can choose what they want to do. I just had a simple request for BP Totty and he complied like a mentsch.