I was planning on going back to school to study data science, but everyone online is making it out like the tech field is dead and people are getting laid off and now you need eight year experience just to get an entry level gig. Worried I missed the boat on being able to get a good job in the field, should I just accept I'm stuck in retail?
Probably not, programming languages are just tools usd to do jobs. If you like databasey bits you could look at backend work, you'd need to know some SQL like Postgres or MySql. Postgres has a pretty good tutorial on their site here.
If you do go down that route I'd pick up a front-end language as well. JavaScript, HTML and CSS are what you're after. When you've got the basics of those down learn whatever frameworks popular in your area. Probably React or Nextjs.