Special Alert!!! Truck Driving Schools

hi i just read your thread im thinking about enrolling in a school here on long island the tuiution is 4795 is that a good price or is it to high

 

hi , is this school sage or another school ? one thing i do was ring up a big truck company and ask them were they like to hire fom which schoool as to the price well i know it is not cheap but look around at the other schools and see what they charge , my faith is in sage , go to sage and see if they have a seminar , if you know which trucking company you want to work for talk to them which school is best fact is i went to a bad school first and then spoke with a trucking company and was told to go to sage , while i was at sage more people from that bad school came to sage as they could not get accepted by trucking companies for one reason or another, tell me how you get on

 

Strange,
I was in Joplin last week, drove right by Conway, and in the back 40 they had all these bobtails parked in now straight rows, awaiting drivers

 

I was considering The CDL school. They have classroom training in Upstate NY and in the state of Florida. They charge something like $1,400.000 for a 4 week course. I believe, still not bad a deal. Too bad some oTR's don't accept anyone getting their cdl license independently and not going through their school sponsored training course.

Website: WWW.THECDLSCHOOL.COM

 

Not true! Most bottom feeder companies will take school grads but if they run their own school might not hire you but if they NEED to fill a seat they will! I'd still stayaway from the bigs like CR England Swift, Knight, Prime, TransAM and a few others! If you are so desperate that you feel you need to try at a fleece oops excuse me a lease program ask them to mail or email you a copy of the lease agreement and all the assoiated and HIDDEN costs they will take from your paycheck each week and if they DO send all of this paper work to you ask OOIDA what they think or even ask your lawyer OOIDA will be cheaper and know about EVERY single lease program out there and will tell you exactly what you are walking into!

BUT as the OP stated, a trade school or comunity college is THE best place to get the CDL training you need and take it from me I used to be an instructor at a school (mill) south of Atlanta called Alliance thats out of buisness! They had 3 schools, 2 in NC! They are gone too! Just do not fall for the fleece and if you feel pushed, push back! JUST SAY NO! If you aren't an indentured servant to these bottom feeders then you are ahead of the game and smarter than most!

 

In the process of doing this, they are using hopeful and desperate people, who are seriously seeking for a better means to support themselves and their families. The sad fact is, some of these companies are not offering what those people are seeking. They want your signature on a contract. Whether or not you work for them for any length of time is immaterial to them.

Yes, there are many hungry people look for a rewarding career in the truck driving field: I am one of them.
I've wavered back and forth on the issue of accreditation, but after doing some research over the past couple of weeks, I am going back to my original stance on something. I would only recommend CONSIDERING, attending facilities that are endorsed by the Professional Truck Driver Institute (PTDI)
After being awarded a grant by a Workforce Center, I attended two presentations sponsored by this center and discovered that neither were accredited by the PTDI or even the state. It was people like you and some of my research which helped me understand that the majority of truck driving schools are running a con job! My research on one of the schools on the internet reveled that they had allowed a large numbers of illegal aliens to obtain their CDL. The other school is not accredited by the PTDI. So, I searched for such a school and discovered Sage, not only are they approved by PTDI, they also are registered by each state their schools are located in.

I do not consider EVERY school on their lists to be worth attending, but they are at least screened to some degree for standards in their training programs, where many others out there are not. You still need to be careful what you walk into, and know the terms up-front. PDTI, also known as PDTIA, has been around since 1973 in one form or another, and although they have changed hands a few times, they offer the best standards for these schools to live up to, although that is not saying very much. Training facilities continue to be totally unregulated, although the FTC does occasionally slap the hands of those that operate outside the norm.
If you are interested in understanding a bit more about accreditation, you can read up on it here:
http://www.degree.net/guides/accreditation_guide.html

The contract you sign for any training program, ESPECIALLY one that involves tuition, is regulated under criteria of the Truth In Lending Act,

Here's one more thing to consider. It is well known that some of the worst carriers, are aligned with the more questionable schools out there. The tactics used in cases where a newbie cannot cope with the job that they take, because it was misrepresented from the get-go, include the ruining of one's credit reports, illegal debt collection practices, blackballing of the former employee when requests for job references are made by prospective employers.
Boy O Boy! Where were you a month ago, when I started my own research on this matter! Your would have save me a lot of time and effort in researching these matter on TD schools and contracts!

I am becoming convinced that the vast majority of the stand alone truck driver training schools are scams and shams, and there is more than enough evidence to suggest that some borderline RICO Act material is a part of the scene. Personally, I haven't found evidence that there are many legitimate ones out there. It is also becoming apparent that there are some rather large carriers that are making more from signing people up for school, getting funds for signing them up, and they could care less if a driver stays or quits. Is this what people are seeking? Not on your life.

As I said above, I avoided being taken in by those school you are referring to by researching them in the Internet and reading many(many) bogs and trucking boards on this matter
SO! do your research people before you spend many days and hours ( and your money) for truck driving training!

Your local Community Colleges and Technical Training Centers are going to be your best and most trusted sources of legitimate training, as well as the least expensive option for obtaining the training if exchanging a service commitment is not your style, and it will offer you the most control over your options. They will also work with legitimate providers of low cost/low interest student loans from traditional lending institutions. You can find the cost of tuition reduced by more than half to two thirds, over the stand-alone truck driver training centers. A decent student loan can be found in the 4.7% to 5.3% range today.

This great advice, yet there few Community colleges which offer truck driving courses.

You HAVE to protect your own hind end, because there is no one out there that will protect it for you, as unfortunate as it is to state this. Companies are getting away with everything SHORT of murder in this industry, and this is a sickening thing to note, considering that we live in a country that is supposed to be known for it's attention to human rights, and are actively condemning others for their lack of the same.

Thanks for the heads up!
One question:
Do you know of a trucking driving company with its' own training school which will accept a grant from a Workforce center for payment of its; tuition?

 

Boy oh Boy ... I feel soooo lucky to have gone where I went about a quarter of a century ago. NC Truck Driver Training School in Smithfield, NC. By God ... when I left there I could do just about anything I needed to do with a truck.

Not like all these horror stories I have read on this thread. Course was 8 weeks long and after the 5th week you qualified to drive the truck without an instructor in the truck with you or they sent you home. Didn't give a "rats %$#+" about the money or wether you made it or not because the school was state supported and not a business. You either made it or you didn't, it was hard but it was fair and the instructors were absolutely the best. I think my tuition was $75.00 which wouldn't even cover the cost of the fuel I burned up. Oldest school in the nation and the best ... and guess what ... they're still open. If my son was to ever want to drive a big truck ... that's where I would send him ... no question about it!

 

I concurr completely. I am a trainie of this such org. in Indian, Southbend. The teachers there are shady and will treat you like dirt in Indiana. They are just people who are trying to %^#$ your money from your wallet and don't care about you as an individual.

Low-lives most of them

 

Where you when I first began my two month long investigation of Truck Driving school?
Your post confirms ALL of my conclusions about these schools. The ones I avoid are those which are contracted with a specif trucking company.

 

I don't care how good the school is or what accreditation they have . They don't create jobs and job losses in the industry are increasing .
More and more students are just throwing money away and wasting months of their lives .