Hubbie and wife, brand-spankin' new, and tons of questions...

US Express team training company, and so is Covenant & Werner, I think the best training would have been Schneider, but they are closing down their schools next month and hiring only experienced drivers at this point.

 

Go to your local workforce center and ask about the WIA program. They will pay for your schooling.

 

Well, for the first while, it will suck.

You will make a little more than on unemployment, but if you get in the right company after the first year, you will be OK.

I have read somewhere that most of new drivers go out of the industry within a first year, so suck it up, and think about the life after.

If you and wife are going to be driving in a team, you are laughing.....


Cheers

 

Andy - I noticed that you had considered grants. As Mgassel suggested, see if you can get a WIA. In my personal experience with the WIA (yes, I went to school on one), it was great. About 2 weeks from application to having the approval in my hand. Others have had similar experience (though, to be fair, some have had horrible experiences - but that could be the fault of the applicant - you never know)

WIA is good for about $4000, and only covers tuition. Books and supplies are out of pocket - as are the permits and CDL themselves.

 

I'm not saying they can't pay but they workforce center where we live refuses to pay for any training that you can finance another way.
That means they pay for no training at all, because you can always get a bank loan. Yeah, right. My hubby was on unemployment and a veteran and the workforce office refused to give him any WIA money for truck driving school because he could go to company-sponsored training and be an indentured servant for a year and workforce office wouldn't have to put up any money.

Workforce offices are only there to make the public think they are there to help them if they ever need it. The one here is just a building with state employees that get paid to give you job postings. You can do that online with the local paper for free. The office here is a waste of taxpayer money.

Sorry about that rant. Just makes me mad that we had to scrape together money from relatives and get behind on our mortgage to put him through school and the job won't even start to pay well until at least a year after he gets put in his own truck.

To MGassel, no offense to you. I just know from experience that they don't just hand over the money even though that is what the money is supposed to be for. I hope you forgive my ranting.

 

You can file an appeal on their decesion. I went to school on wia money an they did not tell me that I had to find a company sponsored training.

I also did not present them with the fact that I knew about the company sponsored route.


A person that owns a home may have a little harder time getting the funding.

I was buying a home at the time but it was not officially in my name that is how I was able to get the funding I think.

If your assets are too much then they would be able to deny your funding.

If you have training that you can still use and find a job they will deny the funding too.

My assets were two older cars one of which I was still paying on and My income covered all of my bills.

But if they did not give you a reason for the denial then I would fight their decesion as eveyones taxes pays for that program and should be there to help out somone in need of training.

You can try another county I had to the local one near me said they did not have any money which was bs becausre there were others in my class that got funding from my area.

 

I'm with Mgassel (we need to meet, one of these days)

I went with WIA The only hard part was showing that I was unemployable with my skillset. Since I was coming out of the Computer/Telecommunications industry, you'd think that would have been difficult.

I own my home and three cars. (well, I have a mortgage on the home, but we all know what I mean). Cars are all paid off and have been for years.

I had my WIA funding in about 2 weeks.

Definitely appeal - though it looks from your missive that it's probably too late.

 

I will note that once I was finished training Werner allowed me to team up with husband. And I know CRST routinely puts two inexperienced drivers together as does PTL.

However you are picking a poor time in the trucking industry to seek training and employment, most companies have shut down their training programs and few are actually hiring. I know Werner has garnered a reputation for putting drivers through the 275 hour training course and taking weeks after they finish to find them a truck.

 

This board is where we first found out about WIA funding. The workforce office didn't even mention it to my husband. When he brought it up they started telling him they wanted him to see if he could find work first. Then the excuse became they don't want to use that much funding for one person. Then they said they didn't give funding if you could receive funding elsewhere. At the end, they flat out told him that they would not fund anyone to go to trucking school because there was too big of a chance he wouldn't like it and would quit driving. So they kept changing their story everytime but never said it was because we have a house.

The man at Sage was dumbfounded. He said they work with the workforce office in Indy and other places all the time and don't have any problems. He said they must have had a bad experience with someone going to truck driving school in our county or something.

My theory is simpler. I think the woman that kept turning hubby down hates truckers and doesn't want anyone to be one. Either she dated one that dumped her for a lot lizard or her daddy was one and didn't love her enough.

We were running out of time for hubby to go to school and be able to draw unemployment until he started with a company. So, we borrowed what we had to and got behind on bills so he could start making money before time ran out. I will take quite a while to dig out of this hole but somehow we will do it.

Andyjk9--I am so sorry for hijacking your post. Originally, I just wanted you to know that it may not be a sure thing to get the WIA money. I didn't know that others would respond to my post. I really am sorry.