Is a Class B CDL the most cost-efficient type of job skill with the best guaranteed ROI?
There’s a strong case to be made for it.
Yes, there are all sorts of free tutorials and courses on YouTube and elsewhere for things like copywriting, digital marketing, YouTube channels, blogging, coding, day trading, dropshipping, SEO, flipping, niche websites, and numerous other categories.
But none of those side hustles or online businesses offer much in the way of guaranteed results or job placement. Some of them have a steeper learning curve than many anticipate, tons of competition, and may require lengthy amounts of time before yielding any real income.
Frankly, many courses and tutorials are simply pie-in-the-sky scams that rely on outlier results to appear legitimate.
But suppose you’re broke, unemployed, or simply looking for a practical (and legit) new career path, and you need something that, you know, actually works, and you need it right now.
In that case, getting a Class B CDL might be your best option.
What can you do with a Class B CDL?
A Class B CDL enables you to drive vehicles weighing 26,001 pounds or less, such as:
- Tow trucks
- City busses
- Drump trucks
- Cement mixer trucks
- Box trucks
Comparatively speaking, few jobs come close to the benefits a CDL B can offer in terms of length of training, training costs, and most importantly, return on investment (meaning income).
For instance, there are people who spend four years in college and graduate with $32,731 of student loan debt, but end up with few or no job prospects.
Nursing school or medical technician training for CT or MRI usually takes 2–4 years to complete, and may cost tens of thousands of dollars. Though the payoff can be huge, and almost anything in the medical field offers great job security.
The average income in the U.S. for a lawyer is $144,230. That’s fantastic income, obviously. But you generally only make the higher end of the scale by working in places where the cost of living and taxation are higher (NY and CA, for instance). Then there’s the costly tuition and the lengthy time commitment: Seven years between college and law school.
Professional graduate-level careers in law, medicine, and engineering are no doubt prestigious and offer great incomes. But they come with subtantial sacrifice. You trade almost 10% of your life away to obtain them, during which time you generally make no income and can incur massive debt. And frankly, few people are cut out to be lawyers, doctors, and engineers.
How Much Do CDL B Drivers Make?
By contrast, you can get a CDL B in as little as two weeks, for as little as maybe $3,000 (or even free with tuition reimbursment), and expect to make an average of $48,196 in annual income.
The salary ranges between $35,000 to about $65,000 depending on where you work, your level of experience, and your license endorsements (hazard, air brakes, tanker).
In addition, with a Class B CDL, like nursing and other occupations that require specialized training, you have good job security. You can go virtually anywhere in any state and find places hiring truck drivers for above the median income for the US. Some states like Wyoming pay an average salary of $57,728 for drivers.
That’s a remarkable ROI for an “investment” of only two weeks, and maybe only $3,000 in total costs.
Some companies might even offer to pay for truck driving school as part of your overall job training. This is the case in currently worker-deprived fields like construction, petroleum, or mining, where you might be expected operate various forms of heavy equipment and machinery.
You can also obtain a Class B CDL when you’re as young as 18 years old. Which means that if you were to start driving right out of high school, by the time your college-bound peers graduated, you would likely have made over $200,000 in income. Meanwhile, your diploma-having peers are jobless or underemployed, and mired in student loan debt.
Is truck driving glamorous or prestigious? Of course not. Most jobs aren’t. But when it comes to offering practical, secure, and efficiently fast job training, a CDL B offers some of the best bang for your buck.
Resources:
Dean Brooks 