Hello to all

My name is Rick and I am new to all of this and am looking at getting into the industry as a rookie. I seem to find that most of the carriers that do sponsored training get nothing but bashed. Now I am not nieve to the ways of the world and I know that everyone pays one way or another. As far as my own circumstances go, I live in the once great state of Michigan. As most know, my state is on a downhill spiral to disaster for jobs and business. I have been unemployed for over a year and have made the decision that I need a career change (seeing as I could not get anything in my old career venu for this long). I have always been interested in trucking and driving one of them behomoths down the roadways of America, so why not try now... The main issue here is training. Where I live (this makes absolutely no sense), Truck driving is not an accepted career to use state grant funds (ie, nwlb, etc.) for tuition. I am unable to obtain the resources to go to a private training school of which I have already pre-signed with and have received several pre-hires from carriers but that is all worthless unless I am able to go through a private training school. I am now forced to go through a carrier sposored program and "pay my dues" the hard way.
What I need is some sound information from you that I can base a sound decision on as far as the few carriers out there that have their own training school programs and will and are hiring. I am not interested in a team position nor am I interested in a lease operators position. I just wanna be an otr trucker that can bring his wife along with him after all the training hoopla.
So guy's and gal's, any advice to the needy?????