MCPHERSON, Kan. – Paige Miltenberger always knew she’d grow up to work on cars.
She’s been restoring old cars with her dad and grandfather since she was a kid. But as a young woman in St. Louis, she wasn’t finding the training she needed to fix up the classics.
“My technical high school that I went to, it was all new stuff and just general automotive stuff,” Miltenberger said. “And it wasn’t that niche category of classic cars that I knew I wanted to work on.”
Enter McPherson College, the only college in the country that offers a bachelor’s degree in automotive restoration.
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“I knew I liked working on cars. I knew I liked working on old cars specifically. And there’s no other program like this one. So, in my head, this is the only place I could have possibly gone,” the sophomore said.
And it appears Miltenberger made the right choice – she’s one of the program’s top students, who’s missed only one test question so far this semester in TE 141 – Engine Rebuilding.
Miltenberger is just one of about 175 students majoring in auto restoration at McPherson College, a 138-year-old liberal arts college located about an hour north of Wichita. The auto program turns 50 next year, a milestone for a school contributing to an industry that desperately needs more workers.
According to TechForce Foundation, it’s projected that 85,581 new autoworkers will be needed to meet demand. That number will increase every year, totaling more than 350,000 by 2028.
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Working on classic cars is even more niche, making McPherson College one of a kind.
“We consider the skills that we’re teaching heritage skills. So they are not things that students are learning in shop class, if there’s even a shop class in their school anymore,” said Amanda Gutierrez, vice president for automotive restoration and engineering. “And so, from the woodworking to the hand fabrication of metal, all of the hand sewing of seats, things like that, these are all skills that are disappearing.”
Students learn all aspects of restoration, from engine rebuilding to painting panels, welding joints to sewing upholstery.
“One of my favorites is students who walk into the trim lab, never touched a sewing machine in their life,” said Gutierrez.
Noah Durham was one of those students. He loves all aspects of fixing up old cars, but the attention to detail in upholstery and the emphasis on every stitch being perfect appealed to him. It’s also a field in high demand.
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“Almost every shop, when they come looking for people or asking for people to do upholstery,” said Durham, a senior. “A lot of people aren’t doing that anymore. And it’s become very specialized, especially on really high-caliber cars like your Ferraris, Bentleys, Jaguars.”
Durham graduates in May, but he’s already got a full-time job lined up. He’ll be working as a trimmer at a restoration shop in Pennsylvania, specializing in European classics, making more than $70,000 a year.
And he’s not unique – McPherson boasts a 95% job acceptance rate within six months of graduation. And these aren’t just jobs in restoration shops. McPherson graduates are all over the country working across multiple disciplines.
“They work in shops, they own their own shops. They work for museums, private collections, auction houses as historic specialists, putting together the research and doing all of that,” said Gutierrez.
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And in an increasingly AI-driven world, auto restoration seems to be mostly immune to being replaced by computers.
“AI is not replacing this,” said Curt Goodwin, the school’s engine professor. “I talk about that when we’re assembling an engine, and you’re turning that engine over by hand and feeling that everything is spot on, AI can’t replace that.”
Of course, AI can’t replace hands-on labor, but it’s also hard to find answers online because many of the manuals haven’t been digitized. If you need to know how to rebuild a rare European engine, you’ll need to be a student and head to McPherson’s library and read the physical manual.
“We’re working on the engine project or whatever. And they’ll ask me, ‘well, what of this torque or what are these specs?’ I’m like, ‘I don’t know. Look it up.’ And so they get their phone out. I go, ‘no, no. You look it up in the manual, look it up in a book,’” said Goodwin. “These cars are one of a kind.”
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There are currently 23 cars being worked on inside the college at the moment in various stages 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 cars are completed, some are sold (with the proceeds going right back into the program) while others join the school’s stable of classic cars that tour the country in shows and parades.
Looking ahead, the school of automotive studies hopes to double in size in the next decade. Gutierrez says it will be expanding facilities to accommodate the anticipated growth, as well as adding new specialized programs in fields like automotive digital media and engineering.
And while the money can be good and the job security seems to be stable, for the students at McPherson, it’s about passion.
“You gotta do it for the love. But it’s a legitimate way to make a living, and you’re not going to starve, and that job is going to be safe for a long time, especially if you’re good at it,” said Goodwin. “I’ve always been able to feed my family.”
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