This looks so much like my lost cat Velcro. No chance you ever lived in Florida found her and gave her a good home? I am sure it's not her, but that's what I hope happened to her.
As a Floridian, you just have not looked in the right corners.
I can't think of a better solution other than maybe airlines creating their own schools to train their pilots after their initial training is complete. Do you have any thoughts on how the situation could be made better?
This seems like a great place to create a system where after initial training like yours, an airline could pick up the cost of further training kinda like a lot of trucking companies do. Like I get it, training to fly is a ton different than driving a truck, and the investment into a pilot would be a world different than tucking, but I bet an airline makes a lot more off a pilot than a shipping company does a trucker. So once a person proves their ability to make it through initial schooling, it would probably be a worthwhile investment for the airlines.... Idk.