I wanted to say it is very hard to compete with people who've been learning a fundamental part of a job their whole upbringing when you had other struggles to face (idk, low-income jobs, rent, etc)

From a skill set perspective, you'd like to have colleagues with the same fundamentals. Is it fair? No. Should it be that way? Also now IMHO. But to get the one thing, you'd have to change other aspects of the whole system. And history has shown that 'the ruling class' gas no interest in that - why make more competitors ?