McPherson Faculty in Kansas gives a four-year automotive restoration program to college students.
MCPHERSON, Kan. – Paige Miltenberger at all times knew she’d develop as much as work on vehicles.
She’s been restoring outdated vehicles together with her dad and grandfather since she was a child. However as a younger lady in St. Louis, she wasn’t discovering the coaching she wanted to repair up the classics.
“My technical highschool that I went to, it was all new stuff and simply basic automotive stuff,” Miltenberger mentioned. “And it wasn’t that area of interest class of basic vehicles that I knew I needed to work on.”
Enter McPherson Faculty, the one school within the nation that gives a bachelor’s diploma in automotive restoration.
FORD INVESTING $4 MILLION IN SCHOLARSHIPS FOR AUTO TECHNICIANS
College students work with their teacher, Chris Paulsen, on a 1912 Ford Mannequin T at McPherson Faculty in McPherson, Kansas, on Oct. 15, 2025. (FOX Enterprise Community / Fox Information)
“I knew I appreciated engaged on vehicles. I knew I appreciated engaged on outdated vehicles particularly. And there is not any different program like this one. So, in my head, that is the one place I may have presumably gone,” the sophomore mentioned.
And it seems Miltenberger made the best selection – she’s one of many program’s high college students, who’s missed just one take a look at query to date this semester in TE 141 – Engine Rebuilding.
Miltenberger is only one of about 175 college students majoring in auto restoration at McPherson Faculty, a 138-year-old liberal arts school positioned about an hour north of Wichita. The auto program turns 50 subsequent yr, a milestone for a faculty contributing to an business that desperately wants extra staff.
In keeping with TechForce Basis, it’s projected that 85,581 new autoworkers can be wanted to satisfy demand. That quantity will improve yearly, totaling greater than 350,000 by 2028.
GM CORVETTES SHATTER AMERICAN SPEED RECORDS AT LEGENDARY RACETRACK
Engaged on basic vehicles is much more area of interest, making McPherson Faculty considered one of a form.
“We take into account the abilities that we’re instructing heritage abilities. So they aren’t issues that college students are studying in store class, if there’s even a store class of their college anymore,” mentioned Amanda Gutierrez, vice chairman for automotive restoration and engineering. “And so, from the woodworking to the hand fabrication of metallic, all the hand stitching of seats, issues like that, these are all abilities which are disappearing.”
College students study all features of restoration, from engine rebuilding to portray panels, welding joints to stitching upholstery.
Andrew Dehn works with panel board and leather-based to make a door panel. (FOX Enterprise Community / Fox Information)
“One among my favorites is college students who stroll into the trim lab, by no means touched a stitching machine of their life,” mentioned Gutierrez.
Noah Durham was a kind of college students. He loves all features of fixing up outdated vehicles, however the consideration to element in upholstery and the emphasis on each sew being good appealed to him. It’s additionally a area in excessive demand.
PORSCHE 2026 MACAN EV GETS DIGITAL KEY SHARING, AI VOICE CONTROL AND AUTOMATIC PARKING
“Nearly each store, once they come searching for folks or asking for folks to do upholstery,” mentioned Durham, a senior. “Lots of people aren’t doing that anymore. And it is develop into very specialised, particularly on actually high-caliber vehicles like your Ferraris, Bentleys, Jaguars.”
Durham graduates in Might, however he’s already acquired a full-time job lined up. He’ll be working as a trimmer at a restoration store in Pennsylvania, specializing in European classics, making greater than $70,000 a yr.
Kennedy Batchelder cuts threads on a lathe at McPherson Faculty in McPherson, Kansas, on Oct. 15, 2025. (FOX Enterprise Community / Fox Information)
And he’s not distinctive – McPherson boasts a 95% job acceptance price inside six months of commencement. And these aren’t simply jobs in restoration outlets. McPherson graduates are everywhere in the nation working throughout a number of disciplines.
“They work in outlets, they personal their very own outlets. They work for museums, personal collections, public sale homes as historic specialists, placing collectively the analysis and doing all of that,” mentioned Gutierrez.
FORD UNVEILS 2026 MUSTANG FX PACKAGE WITH NOSTALGIC FOX BODY STYLING
And in an more and more AI-driven world, auto restoration appears to be largely proof against being changed by computer systems.
“AI shouldn’t be changing this,” mentioned Curt Goodwin, the college’s engine professor. “I discuss that after we’re assembling an engine, and also you’re turning that engine over by hand and feeling that every thing is spot on, AI cannot substitute that.”
Cole Nichols places a McLaren 720S transmission again collectively at McPherson Faculty in McPherson, Kansas, on Oct. 15, 2025. (FOX Enterprise Community / Fox Information)
In fact, AI can’t substitute hands-on labor, however it’s additionally exhausting to search out solutions on-line, as a result of most of the manuals haven’t been digitized. If it’s worthwhile to know how you can rebuild a uncommon European engine, you’ll must be a pupil and head to McPherson’s library and browse the bodily guide.
“We’re engaged on the engine venture or no matter. They usually’ll ask me, ‘Properly, what of this torque or what are these specs?’ I am like, ‘I do not know. Look it up.’ And they also get their telephone out. I am going, ‘no, no. You look it up within the guide, look it up in a e book,’” mentioned Goodwin. “These vehicles are considered one of a form.”
FERRARI BRINGS BACK LEGENDARY TESTAROSSA NAME WITH 1,050-HORSEPOWER PLUG-IN HYBRID BEAST
There are at the moment 23 vehicles being labored on inside the school in the mean time, in varied levels of restoration, from an ultra-rare 1956 Austin-Healey 100M Le Mans to a 1953 Mercedes-Benz 300S Cabriolet to a 1967 Mini Cooper S. After vehicles are accomplished, some are offered (with the proceeds going proper again into this system), whereas others be part of the college’s steady of basic vehicles that tour the nation in reveals and parades.
McPherson Faculty’s 1953 Mercedes-Benz 300 S Cabriolet on the Pebble Seashore Concours d’Class in Pebble Seashore, California, on Aug. 20, 2022. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg by way of Getty Pictures / Getty Pictures)
Wanting forward, the college of automotive research hopes to double in dimension within the subsequent decade. Gutierrez says it is going to be increasing services to accommodate the anticipated progress, in addition to including new specialised applications in fields like automotive digital media and engineering.
GET FOX BUSINESS ON THE GO BY CLICKING HERE
And whereas the cash may be good, and the job safety appears to be steady, for the scholars at McPherson, it’s about ardour.
“You gotta do it for the love. Nevertheless it’s a reliable technique to make a residing, and you are not going to starve, and that job goes to be secure for a very long time, particularly if you happen to’re good at it,” mentioned Goodwin. “I’ve at all times been in a position to feed my household.”
