Getting training as diesel tech

Very seriously considering taking a year off of full time before I go OTR again, to get trained up on diesel mechanic/repair skills.

Looking at a few schools in my state I've found a few I'd like to attend.

Most are operating off of the Pell grant and Stafford loans- which means like any higher education/vocational school, they're gonna bend me over for as much as they can, this is not news and unsurprising considering I'm still in college (became a driver to pay college tuition, found out I love driving and said screw it to digital sciences and switched to business degree. 15k/debt so far, about 2 years and another 10k in student loans left on that particular gem.)

Narrowed it down to three schools, whom have three things in common:

• ASE certified
• Atleast if not over 1,500 hands on / contact training
• 50-55 week total course
• All programs 9-5. Mon-Fri.
• All courses and programs considered higher education by dept. of education, therefore eligible for grants/loans
• All programs heavily focus on: Driveline repair and rebuild, top/bottom inframe work, hydraulics, wiring harness, ECM repair/troubleshooting, wiring and circuit building, emissions systems (you get the picture, it's the whole shabang.)
• All programs offer on campus housing at about 10% of total tuition costs, so if it's $8,000 total for the training, $800 for what is surely a small prison cell of a "room." Board (food) is 5% of total tuition.

The reason I'm interested in this, is simple.
I want to go O/O. Not now, not even in the near future. Sometime, though. Be it local or OTR. My insurance costs would be insane at the moment, trying to find realistic financing would be unbelievably hard to find and then it really just comes down to the bottom line: I am not yet experienced enough to touch O/O.

That doesn't mean I can't think about it.

Can't help but feel this would be a good investment for the future and a realistic fall back as a profession should something happen to me, medically or I, God forbid, pointed out somehow.
Would be a great way to cut down on labor costs and turn some red ink black at the end of the year.


Thinking weekend job while I'm in the school to keep some change in my pocket, and current experience valid. All the schools in question have placement departments that sound fairly confident they could find me a temp position in the areas of their respective locations.


I'd like some feed back, decent idea? Or don't bother.
Probably gonna bother eitherway, because again, I'd like the fallback of having the skills for another job should something happen here.

 

I enjoy driving, love the road. Love going new and old places, just so long as it ain't home, too often.

Would prefer to call my own shots, and not have to be ordered around by a desk jocky in an office who has never been a driver, and not have an option outside of telling him where he can stick that.

Not too keen, more or less on operating my own authority from what I've seen going on with the lot who are constantly complaining about running their own authority...but, maybe?
Too far in the future to make any of those calls now, putting the cart way way way in front of the horse even discussing that.


Just to reiterate, I want to drive for a good long while, and not do it as a company driver or L/O.

Well, mainly what I'm asking is a yes/no: Do you think having this training would help me as an owner operator?



I'll get a hold of her, but I'd like other opinions as well.


Where you at Ritcher, c`mon you mean #######, lets hear it.

 

Duplicate post. (not really, just condensing.)

 

And just out of curiosity, how much money are you throwing at repairs per year? I'm fine with very wide ball-parking estimates here.

I believe I saw Red foreman make a comment, the other day about "Delusions of grandeur" in regards to someone asking about starting a small fleet with a few thousand dollars. In that context, Red was right. This guy was wildly delusional. I'm a little less, but I like to daydream when I'm bumped against a dock too...Owning even a small fleet...Oh how lovely it sounds, back breaking labor, hair pulling annoyance and a high probability of going broke. Seriously, I ask you, what more could a man want?