Machine skills really help.
Trinidad does have an excellent if not the best reputation among the gunsmithing schools. One student recently converted a double barrel shotgun into a double rifle. He did this over a six month period of time and took it to a custom gunbuilder show. All the professional gunsmiths were impressed by his work.
One thing about Colorado, stay there for a year to establish residency. Tuition is about double for out of state residents.
I visited the school's library. They have about fourteen six shelf bookcases filled with gun related books (about four shelves are knife and knife making books). They have old, out-of-print and hard to find volumes. They have factory manuals, Army technical manuals, repair books, stock making books, Kuhnhausen's books, bound magazines, reloading books and manuals, shooting instructions (shotgun, rifle, handgun), books on sniping, military firearms, books on flintlocks, powder horns, pistols, revolvers. Virtually any subject related to firearms may be found in that library. It's a research center in and of itself for a student of small arms. You could sit there and read all day (if you didn't have to attend classes and do lab work, ahem, make guns).