Who can become enlightened?

Who can become enlightened? This question depends on who you ask. Theravada Buddhists say that only monastics can become "Buddhas" while Mahayana Buddhists usually focus on the Bodhisatva ideal of becoming a Buddha later on in some other life. But the real fact is this, nobody can know who can or cannot become enlightened and attain escape from samsara. Making dogmatic rules does not mean you are correct, it just means that you made a rule, you have not proven this, you have just invented it and state it as fact. Therefore Theravada Buddhists make a fact claim based on something they cannot possibly know.

I contend that since we cannot know and have no way of knowing for sure who can attain "Nirvana" that everyone has the potential. I think this is certainly much easier if one is a monastic as a monastic has much more time to devote to meditation and study, but just because one is a monastic there is no guarantee that he or she will ever achieve anything.

One can be married with kids and live a very ascetic and pious life. Compared to the monk, maybe their meditation is deeper and more virtuous. Maybe their understanding of their study is greater than that of the monk.

Escape from samsara is no guarantee because one is a monk, but it is also not certain that one cannot attain this because one is not a monk. We simply cannot know for sure and making dogmatic rules about it simply means nothing, it means you made a fact claim about something you have no evidence for.

You may say "But as a Jain, you must detach yourself from all things" this is true. A true Jain must not be attached to anything, but does having things mean that one is attached to them and does having nothing mean one is not attached to something? Detachment is within. If getting rid of all of your possessions helps you, then by all means do so. However if you have things and are by no means attached to them, then kudos to you for understanding that true detachment is within.