which companies offer the apprenticeship program under gi bill?

Right now Schneider, Werner , and TMC are ONLY companies to offer the actual VA vocational apprenticeship program. I just recently completed it with Werner. Not sure how much info you have on the program as there really isn't much out there. I had never heard of it until TMC told me about it. Food for thought, they told me an an monetary amount that was double what I was actually able to get. The MAX is 13,000 for the year and its like everything else in the military, based of cost of living / education in your state or in this case the home terminal state of said company. IE in my case I received the amount based on Werner's corporate location in Omaha,NE. You get paid from your date of hire HOWEVER, your benefits don't start until AFTER you finish with a trainer and go solo. At that point the 1st payment is back paid to your hire date, IE 1st day of orientation.So for me, I started on Jan. 16th of 2012, I went solo on march 25th I believe is what it says on the certificate, and the 1st payment was received on the 7th of APR. back paid to the 16th of Jan. If you have a VA rating you know you're used to seeing the check on or around the 1st. At least with my apprenticeship payments they were deposited on the 7th normally, even though it all comes from the same place. I guess because they actually verify whether or not you worked the previous month so it may take an extra couple days. Company policy aside, as per the VA you CAN take a leave up absence up to 30 and still receive the payment for the month the LOA was taken in as you were still employed that month. You just didn't do anything. AGAIN, COMPANY POLICY DICTATES LOA's, With Werner anything over 5 days has to be a LOA and that's what I did around my 6th month mark. Don't know anything on SNI, or TMC's policies concerning that. Only that as long as its under 30 days VA will still pay., AH, also, your payments will be one amount for 6 months and then drop to about half for the second 6 months. Also, be aware that once you take the VA vocational apprenticeship program credit, assuming you finish out the full year, you wont have any more GI Bill EDUCATION benefits left, its an either or program designed for folks that don't really want to go to a traditional collage or vocation school. For me it was a good incentive to do a full year with my initial company. You CAN however use it in conjunction with an approved trucking school. I took the chapter 33 benefits, and found a school that was PTDI certified and offered as a vocational training certificate course through a semi local community college. NOT ALL community college CDL courses are approved to use the GI Bill, Like I said, I found one that was semi local. The college 5 minutes from my house offered a course BUT it was a federal accredited school so they could not offer GI Bill benefits. Or rather you I wouldn't have been approved by VA to attend their course. AS it was I got the full cost of the program I attended, and then took the apprenticeship at Werner. Its a good way to go if you re willing to work at any of those companies. For me the choice was easy. I didn't want to do flats as my knees are shot already. I'm at 40% total for the knees now and I COULD actually get that raised, I just don't bother. Anyway, as for SNI, the recruiter that came to my school could not answer a single question. She showed up with a driver and a beat to hell century, Something to be said for honesty I guess but seriously, Not one question was she able to answer, most of the questions were eventually answered by the driver who was technically not part of the presentation while she fumbled through her binder of paperwork looking for answers. Werner recruiter was on it. great presentation, answered everything. That's really all it was for me. I wasn't even remotely considering Werner when I decided to drive however I wanted or rather I NEEDED the apprenticeship pay and they had the best presentation. Simple choice for me. Anyhoo. Hopefully this helped the OP or someone else. Not alot of good info out there on this subject to include from the VA itself. One thing to remember, Like someone else posted above, A LOT of companies do stuff and have programs for transitioning military, and I would ask around as maybe by now a couple more companies have gotten approved but I'm pretty certain that is still just those 3 that actually offer the GI credit. One last thing as I saw someone mention it and it has no bearing on the situation what so ever. This credit has NOTHING TO DO WITH PAID COMPANY CDL TRAINING...you ARE NOT committed to any of the accepted companies by taking the credit. You quit working or switch it a company that doesn't receive it, you lose the credit that's it. I don't know about switching between acepted companies, however I imagine that you'd lose it, and have to re apply at the other carrier, but that's just a hunch. Again, hopes this helps anyone looking into this credit.

 

One other quick post, If you quit the program, obviously you don't get paid the vocational credit, but you DON'T lose whatever you have left over in your GI Bill, remember of course that you have to switch to the post 9/11 credit to take the vocational credit, and once you do that you cant go back to the traditional GI benefits, but you DO still have whatever you didn't use left to use in any other way the post 9/11 lets you use it. I was told how the rate works, but I don't remember. I do know that's it uses up time though and not money. Which sounds weird, but that's how it works. IE, if you use the entire year of the program, then you use you're entire GI bill education credit, but if DON'T use the entire year its 1 month = ....some amount of time..., I apologize , like I said, I forgot the amount. But you know you have 10 years to use your GI Bill, so the entire year program is = to the 10 years you have to use the Bill, I want to say I was told its just rounded to make it easy and 1 month = 1 year, but I'm not sure. The point is though, you WILL still have money left if you don't do the whole program, you just will have a lot less time to use start using it.