The Departments of Transportation and Homeland Security on Monday announced "unprecedented" actions to shut down a total of 270 CDL schools and send law enforcement to an additional 200. CDL school trade groups are actually applauding it.
That's because since April 2025, two groups have been calling out the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration for not keeping up with the "threat" posed by "unscrupulous training entities."
The National Association of Publicly Funded Truck Driving Schools (NAPFTDS) and Commercial Vehicle Training Association (CVTA), representing privately funded schools, praised the action and criticized FMCSA's longstanding "self-certification" system.
NAPFTDS and CVTA "are pleased to see that USDOT's oversight efforts have resulted in the emergency removal of 110 noncompliant training providers," a statement from the orgs sent to Overdrive read.
For years, these groups have observed bad actors offering 48-hour CDL courses and urged FMCSA to clean up the Training Provider Registry.
In December, FMCSA finally began cleaning up on thousands of schools in the agency's TPR. Overdrive reporting at the time found many of the 3,000 purged schools hadn't taught CDL drivers in years, and many hadn't ever taught CDL courses. Further reporting revealed FMCSA was doing in-person audits of some 1,500 CDL schools to prove they were teaching real courses, with real trucks.
DOT and DHS announced on Monday that as a result of 400 recent audits, they found 40% of schools fell short of federal regs.
Some lacked adequate space to train truck drivers, some had unlicensed instructors, some didn't keep records correctly, and some were so outright fraudulent as to claim a school bus in the back of a trailer as an instruction space, a press release said.
"NAPFTDS and CVTA have worked together to highlight the deluge of bad actors onto the Training Provider Registry through the original 'self-certification' system," the orgs wrote. "These non-compliant providers proliferated into the market and threatened highway safety because self-certification allowed them to register without uploading necessary documents relating to licensure, curriculum, etc., and were not subject to a review of their fitness to train."
Indeed, Overdrive spoke to training providers that barely remembered the light registration process, as well as ones who had simply put their names down and never actually trained students.
DOT and DHS on Monday shut down 110 schools that had passed more than 10 drivers that later went on to get put out-of-service for English language proficiency.
As of April 2026, Overdrive was still finding ads for CDL schools that taught courses in Spanish.
The trade groups say it's time to raise the bar for training providers in trucking.
"Strengthening the entry process onto the TPR and removing 'self-certification' is critical to the ultimate goal of a trustworthy and healthy registry," they wrote. "We look forward to FMCSA's future rulemaking to strengthen certification criteria in line with the original aims of the Entry-Level Driver Training Advisory Committee."
Ironically, it was that same committee who, on behalf of owner-ops who had long taught their own children to drive, recommended the self-certification model.
[Related: FMCSA pins 'CDL mills' problem on self-certification: Are owner-ops to blame?]
However, that was back in 2013, and pretty much everyone now agrees the model has been abused by bad actors.
NAPFTDS and CVTA were quick to draw a line between the bad actors and trucking's strong core of professionals, as was FMCSA Administrator Derek Barrs in announcing the action on Monday.
"We jointly applaud Administrator Barrs for his leadership and particularly for taking time to note the 'really good folks who do really good things in this industry,'" during the press conference on Monday, the orgs wrote. "This statement typifies the outstanding and honest work NAPFTDS and CVTA schools proudly do every day to train truck drivers to join the trucking industry. Trucking is an honorable American service profession and today's cleanup further clears the path to make it easier and safer for new entrants to find a great school and a great career. "
