Ford is further backing the training of automotive technicians with a new, larger investment in its Auto Tech Scholarship program.
The company’s philanthropic arm and Ford dealers are making an investment of $4 million into the program, funds that Ford said will be dispersed as $5,000 scholarships for 800 students with the goal of working as auto technicians.
Ford Philanthropy started the Auto Tech Scholarship program in 2023. TechForce Foundation, an Arizona-based non-profit, facilitates the grants.
Ford’s latest $4 million investment in auto technician scholarships marks a $2 million increase from last year’s and $3 million increase compared to 2023’s.
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It comes as the auto industry is contending with an ongoing shortage of mechanics.
Demand for new auto technicians from 2025 through 2028 is expected to hit over 351,000, according to a report from the TechForce Foundation.
Separate data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, meanwhile, suggested there will be some 67,800 openings for automotive service technicians and mechanics annually through 2033.
“This problem is bigger than Ford,” Alex Shelton, manager of Education for the Future of Work with Ford Philanthropy, told FOX Business in an interview. “However, we want to come to the table on behalf and support the entire industry. This scholarship, starting in 2023, was an opportunity for Ford, Ford Philanthropy, for our dealers to come together to provide scholarships to help students get to school, through school and into careers.”
“Over the last three years, we’ve been able to grow it from $1 million to $2 million to this year, a $4 million program that will support 800 students across the country,” he said.
Individuals enrolled as future students in an eligible automotive, diesel or combined technician post-secondary program and current attendees with demonstrated financial need can apply for the 800 need-based scholarships, according to the TechForce Foundation website. They must have completed the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).
Schools eligible for the Auto Tech Scholarship program are scattered across multiple regions in the U.S., the list on the TechForce Foundation’s website showed.
Shelton told FOX Business it is a “tuition-first scholarship” but noted it is “not limited to just tuition.”
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Funds from the Auto Tech Scholarship program “can roll into other aspects of a student’s education needs as well” such as childcare, gas, transportation, housing and food, according to Shelton.
“There’s a plethora of barriers that students can face in their educational journey, and many times it’s a couple $100 that sets a student off track or forces a student to drop out of school, so by having some extra funding available for them, we hope that this allows students not just get to school, but stay in school and then graduate to start their careers.”
Makenna Enga, a past recipient of one of Ford’s scholarships, told FOX Business her grant helped give her the opportunity to stay in school to become an auto technician.
“Trade school is not cheap,” she said. “I think any school after high school is not the most inexpensive thing, but trade school is accelerated, and it gets you into the workforce faster, but that also means that you have to pay tuition a little bit faster in some cases, and so it gave me the chance where I could stay in school and really pursue trade school and keep going with it, with that extra help of money.”
Ford has been a major help in pursuing her career goals, according to Enga. She ultimately wants to work in Formula One.
“Ford has been huge, especially in my long-term goals, because Ford Performance is in NASCAR and Formula One, and they have a lot of connections and ways to kind of know people and meet people,” she said.
Enga also said the scholarship was motivational while she was in school.
“When you get a scholarship that really wants you to do well and is behind you and pushing you to keep going forward with it, it’s just nice to have that extra little support of, ‘Oh, they believe in me so I should keep doing this. I should keep believing in myself too.’”
Ford hopes to see members of the next generation of auto technicians arise out of its Auto Tech Scholarship program, according to Shelton.
Past scholarship recipients have included high school graduates and people looking to switch career paths later in life, among others, he said.
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“This is not the career path that I think a lot of people view when they think about an auto technician,” Shelton also told FOX Business. “There is so much technology, this cutting-edge technology woven across the entirety of a vehicle, and vehicles are only continuing to become more sophisticated and smarter every single day with infotainment to electric vehicles.”
“There’s just a need for individuals who want to work with their hands, but also blend that with this exciting technological component, and so I think the career is changing, and we’re hoping that this scholarship provides a financial assistance and allows it to remove barriers for students, but that it’s also dispelling some of those misperceptions about what it means to enter this industry and how you have an amazing chance to get into a career and then grow yourself in that career as well.”
More than 634,000 people in the U.S. worked as auto mechanics as of 2024, according to IBISWorld.
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