Best Trucking School in Denver?

Front Range Communiy College used to, not sure if they still do.

 

I'm going to careers world wide out of Keensburg,CO if you have the funds its 2,800 if you dont find it! cause if you get financed from say Stevens (god forbid) you will pay 4,500 plus 18% interest and you stuck with the starter company for a 1yr the claim that they pay for your tution is B.S.

 

I chose USTDS for their "local business support". When you graduate, they hand you a list of people that have hired 1 or 2 students over the years. 2 pages long. You call on these businesses, and they tell you it's been years since they hired and now their insurance wont let them hire new grads. Call that "lifetime job placement" person, and she shuffles you back to one of the bottom feeder OTR companys. Sorry, already tried Werner, just glad I got a bus ticket home out of them

 

So, which school did you finally go to? I live in the Denver area and looking at getting my CDL. Thanks

 

We chose USTDS and we were happy. The placement person WILL try to get you to go with Swift. Do your own research and tell her who to call. We did not call anybody and she did get us hooked up with US Xpress which was our first choice. My experrience was different than the other poster.

Very happy with the training and the instructors

 

I know you wanted more responses from actual students or people who have gone through a local school but I just thought I'd give my two cents. I too am thinking about going to USTDS in wheat ridge.. I figure ultimately no matter where I get the training it's going to come down to me actually learning the stuff no matter where I go.. I was going to go to the swift academy since I plan on going with Swift anyway. I decided NOT to do that since I found USTDS is only about 5 blocks from my house (I didn't even know it was there) and the academy is in Phoenix. Also its a better option to go through a local school just in case things didn't work at Swift and I got stuck in a contract. Now I will say, the reason this school "pushes" to go to these mega carrier/driver mill companies is because they are the easiest to get job placement with. These companies such as, swift, Schneider, Werner, Stevens etc.. are all taking applications from newbies.. YOU HAVE TO START SOMEWHERE.. you can't expect to get out of school and earn top pay with a GREAT paying company doing everything perfectly.. it takes time with all careers and it takes some patients.. this is true unless you know someone already that for some reason thinks already that your the best driver for the job and thinks hiring a new driver is a smart venture to go ahead and hire you right out of school which is HIGHLY unlikely.. take my situation for example My father in law is a DM for Dairy farmers of America but I still can't get in there until I get 2 years of OTR.. Even with family I still have to follow the rules for insurance purposes.

 

USTDS class of 1994. Granted it was the Midway Colorado location. I loved my instructor, he was patient, knowledgeable, and not only taught us the DOT rules but also taught us the "real world" rules. The job placement was great, the equipment was not the greatest but that also taught us what to expect with the big companies.

 

I just finished my 3 week course at USTDS. Yes the instructors are cool, well some of them. One week in classroom, one week on the road, and 2.5 days of backing (one instructor, 6 trucks)! We had 11 students in our class, we were set up for failure.. 3 of us had jobs with JBS... just got home today..sent back because none of us could back up! Now who's fault is that? Not ours, it's the school for having class sizes too big, and not enough staff to teach us!
We were also told that before we head to orientation that they would take us back to get some more backing practice...called and they didn't have time for us.

Money! Money! Money!... Need I say more?