Federal review finds 44% of US trucking schools don't comply with
government rules
[December 02, 2025] By
JOSH FUNK
Nearly 44% of the 16,000 truck driving programs listed nationwide by the
government may be forced to close if they lose their students after a
review by the federal Transportation Department found they may not be
complying with minimum requirements.
The Transportation Department said Monday that it plans to revoke the
certification of nearly 3,000 schools unless they can comply with
training requirements in the next 30 days. The targeted schools must
notify students that their certification is in jeopardy. Another 4,500
schools are being warned they may face similar action.
Schools that lose certification will no longer be able to issue the
certificates showing a driver completed training that's required to get
a license, so students are likely to abandon those schools. It’s not
clear how many of those schools have been actively teaching students.
Separately, the Department of Homeland Security is auditing trucking
firms in California owned by immigrants to verify the status of their
drivers and whether they are qualified to hold a commercial driver’s
license.
This crackdown on trucking schools and companies is the latest step in
the government's effort to ensure that truck drivers are qualified and
eligible to hold a commercial license. This began after a truck driver
that Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says was not authorized to be
in the U.S. made an illegal U-turn and caused a crash in Florida that
killed three people.
The action reins in "illegal and reckless practices that let poorly
trained drivers get behind the wheel of semi-trucks and school buses,”
Duffy said.
Duffy has threatened to pull federal funding from California and
Pennsylvania over the issue, and he proposed significant new
restrictions on which immigrants can get a commercial driver's license
but a court put those new rules on hold. On Monday, he threatened to
withhold $30.4 million from Minnesota if that state doesn't address
shortcomings in its commercial driver's license program and revoke any
licenses that never should have been issued either because they were
valid beyond a driver's work permit or because the state never verified
a driver's immigration status.
So far, every state Duffy has threatened has been a Democratic state,
but he has said the department is auditing a number of other states,
including Texas and South Dakota.
Claire Lancaster, a spokesperson for Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, said: “We
take safety on our roads seriously and the Minnesota Department of
Public Safety has already worked to ensure we are in compliance with
federal law.”
Trucking schools fail to meet standards
It's not clear how action against these trucking schools could affect
the existing shortage of drivers, but the executive director of the
largest association of trucking schools, Andrew Poliakoff, said many of
the schools being decertified were questionable “CDL mills” that would
advertise being able to train drivers in just a few days.
In established training schools, students normally spend at least a
month and get lessons both behind the wheel and in the classroom.
He said those questionable schools were really just “fleecing people out
of money” without teaching them the skills they need to get hired or
pass the test.
“Trucking is an outstanding career. And the people who are not familiar
with the industry might see someone charging $1,000 in $2,000 for a long
weekend or quick training. And they may think that that’s desirable, but
that’s really not,” said Poliakoff, who leads the Commercial Vehicle
Training Association that includes 100 schools with 400 locations
nationwide. None of those schools were decertified.
The Transportation Department said the 3,000 schools it is taking action
against failed to meet training standards and didn't maintain accurate
and complete records. The schools are also accused of falsifying or
manipulating training data.
Some of them were inactive before this action.
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A student driver gets on a truck as the instructor watches in
Calif., Nov. 15, 2021. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)
 Yogi Sanwal, the owner, said his
company closed its truck driving school in 2022. It did so after it
made some changes to comply with federal accreditation requirements,
which then triggered a county government demand for upgrades like
replacing sand and gravel with asphalt. The company didn’t have the
$150,000 it would have needed to do that at the time so it closed
the school. It had trained about 500 truckers in the four to five
years the school was open, Sanwal said.
Trucking industry groups have praised the effort to tighten up
licensing standards and ensure that drivers can meet basic English
proficiency requirements the Trump administration began enforcing
this summer. But groups that represent immigrant truck drivers say
they believe many qualified drivers and companies are being targeted
simply because of their citizenship status.
“Bad actors who exploit loopholes in our regulatory systems are
putting everyone at risk. This is unacceptable,” said Paul J. Enos,
CEO of the Nevada Trucking Association. “We are focused on solutions
and resolute on seeing them implemented.”
Todd Spencer, President of the Owner Operator Independent Drivers
Association, said the industry has long warned about the potential
for problems if trucking schools are allowed to certify themselves.
“When training standards are weak, or in some instances totally
non-existent, drivers are unprepared, and everyone on the road pays
the price,” Spencer said.
Immigrant drivers say they are being unfairly targeted
Truck drivers of the Sikh faith have been caught in the crossfire
and faced harassment because the drivers in the Florida crash and
another deadly crash in California this fall were both Sikhs. The
North American Punjabi Truckers Association estimates that the Sikh
workforce makes up about 40% of truck driving on the West Coast and
about 20% nationwide. Advocacy groups estimate about 150,000 Sikh
truck drivers work in the U.S.
The Department of Homeland Security didn't respond immediately to
questions about the effort to verify the immigration status of truck
drivers, but the UNITED SIKHS advocacy group said they have heard
directly from Punjabi company owners about these aggressive audits
of immigration records.
“Sikh and immigrant truckers with spotless records are being treated
like suspects while they keep America’s freight moving,” the UNITED
SIKHS group said. “When federal agencies frame lawful, licensed
drivers as risks, it doesn’t improve safety — it fuels xenophobia,
harassment, and even violence on the road. Any policy built on fear
instead of facts endangers families, civil rights, and the national
supply chain.”
California moved to revoke 17,000 commercial driver's licenses after
federal officials raised concerns that they had been issued
improperly to immigrants or allowed to remain valid long after a
driver's work permit expired.
___
AP writer Audrey McAvoy contributed to this story.
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