Pro's and Cons

The Pro of the community college is basically being able to try and get jobs working for different companies that will hire new drivers. Essentially you have more options of who to work for.

The Con is you will own money for the training.

The Pro of going the company route is they will train you and pay you (not much) while attending there training program and you will have a job with them after completion.

The Con is that you will be almost certainly be an OTR driver for the company that will train you. Some people like OTR but most really don't and end up quitting and even getting out of the trucking industry all together. To be fair a lot of the driving jobs available to new hires are mostly OTR unless you work the dock for an LTL company and get them to train you to drive but that could be months or even a year or several years before they agree to it. The other downside is you will owe the company money if you quit before the contract to repay them runs out.

 

I just got my CDL through a Comm. College and i would do it 10/10 times if i had to do it over vs going to any company training program. here is what was important to me....

1)didn't have to greyhound bus half way across the us to get to the school/terminal (college was a 40min drive from home)
2) slept in my own bed at night, not share a motel with some stranger ( 1 and 2 only mattered to me cause i have a family)
3) grants paid for 99.9% of my tuition( I paid less than $10.00 out of pocket for tuition). However, I still had to pay for DOT physical & drug screen, text book(kit with log books,atlas,ect.) written exam for AP, and the actual road test. All in all, i spent about $225.00 in total cost to get my CDL.
4) course was about 8 weeks Mon-Thurs.
5) not locked into driving for any particular company when completed

cons would prob. be that you dont get paid while you train and the cost of school( gas to and from school and out of pocket costs for tuition)
I chose CC because it was a better fit for me personally. If your single and really tight on cash then the company training may not be a bad way to go.
At the end of the day, it's all gonna depend on what fits you best!

 

Save up money and go to a college to get you CDL (which is what I did) instead of slaving to crap companies that will give you a bad impression of trucking. I went to one if not the best company out of school and it is great.