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Comment by ktallett | Hacker News Reader

Ford spending $4 million to fund scholarships is going to make as much change to the system as me giving a homeless person a quarter. Considering how expensive college is, what exactly will that fund.

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Maybe 200 people, if you’re optimistic.

At that scale, it starts to become reasonable to consider using the money to fund private job training programs instead.

I encourage you to Google it rather than speculate, as this information is readily available.

> This year's program… is offering $5,000 scholarships to 800 potential automotive technicians from across the country. This year, the program is available across 42 states and for students attending nearly 600 schools. In addition to tuition assistance, scholarship funds can be used to cover day-to-day related expenses like living and transportation, childcare, and tools needed for class and more.

Whether you believe all of that scholarship money will actually be given out is another question.

https://www.fromtheroad.ford.com/us/en/articles/2025/ford-ph...

I don't doubt they will give it out, it's just it doesn't state that is the total cost of the program to become a technician. When college for many costs up to and beyond $100,000, providing just 5% of the cost, is hardly worth shouting about. It definitely isn't a big enough gesture for a company that had revenue of $185 billion in 2024. I am sensing they could find a touch more to actually pay for workers to become technicians for their company, that would benefit them. They could even set up their own program/apprenticeship.

College for trade schools almost never costs $100k. Again, this is Googleable.

Look at this list of schools they support: https://techforce.org/fordphilanthropy/

Most of them are community colleges and trade schools that charge around $10k - $30k total for the degree. In which case, an additional $5k in scholarships is nice.

If you want to be mad at a big company, this probably isn’t your strongest leg to stand on, and there are plenty of other targets for you to be mad at.

That doesn't include food, living costs, general life expenses. That makes it closer to $100,000. I stand by what I said $5000 and stating it can be spent on tuition or living costs is not really going to make a dent in the decision to go to college or trade school.

You’re obviously making up numbers to fit a narrative you already have in your head.

So don’t let the facts interrupt that, I guess.

What facts have you provided that I have ignored? You stated that a community college degree costs between $10,000 to $30,000 over the course of length from starting to qualifying. Therefore it covers approx 1/2 to 1/6 of that. However living costs (which you have failed to mention), which I would say depending (on research done when I considered a post grad in the US) on where you are will approx be $1500 to 3000. Now I read it can take 2 to 4 years depending on if you want an associates degree or a bachelors. Therefore living costs for 2 years can be from $36,000 to $72,000, and for 4 years $72,000 to $144,000. I do not understand why you are choosing to ignore the numbers. It seems a completely bias interpretation of the facts.

*1500 to 3000 per month

Not sure why this is downvoted. It doesn’t even qualify as a rounding error. There are individuals that spend more than this sending other peoples kids to college.

People on here surprise me sometimes with what they down vote. $4 million dollars is 0.00002162% of the total revenue Ford US had in 2024. When you put that little value on future employees and skills, it is clear why you have such a struggle finding competent staff.

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