You are starting to miss the forest for the trees here. The point is pilots love to look down on these cleaners, customer service, baggage handlers, etc as uneducated when the reality is that many pilots have the exact same education level as many of them...a high school diploma. Or a college degree.

The biggest obstacle for most between stopping there and attending civilian flight school is MONEY. Yes, flight training is difficult and challenging, but lets not kid ourselves...it is NOT law school, or med school. The majority of the people you are looking down on, provided the resources you had, would have no trouble going to flight school and getting to the exact position you are in now.