I never went to art school, and at this point probably never will. I didn't have this kind of opportunity. Basically, I never had any formal art-related education, other than elementary school art class lmao (which didn't really teach me anything useful).
I'm completely self-taught, and honestly, it hasn't worked out for me well. I'm a very slow learner and take ages to figure out basic things, also tend to get very caught up in the ways I do things, which leads to me unknowingly repeating the same mistakes for years. If I had someone to guide my progress and give me feedback, it'd probably go a lot faster.
In my opinion, self-taught artists absolutely can surpass someone who went to art school - as long as they're very motivated and hard-working, and I am neither. My attempts to learn are unfocused and unmotivated, and I can't stand forcing myself to draw when I don't feel like it. A structured learning environment would probably do a lot of good for me. But yeah, it's never happening, so I guess I'll have to keep slowly chipping away at this