More women are skipping college to make six figures as electricians, car mechanics and truck drivers

With the high price of tuition at four-year colleges and Americans owing nearly $2 billion in student loan debt, some young people are questioning the benefits of a traditional bachelor’s degree and opting to work with their hands.

Vocational school enrollment shot up by 16% last year, reaching a record level since the National Student Clearing House began recording such data . Gen Z has even been dubbed “the tool belt generation.”

While the majority of workers in trades are men, a growing number of young women are opting to work with their hands. In 2020, 11.6% of those who completed an apprenticeship program in the US were female, according to the Department of Labor .

“It’s about time for people to start realizing that you can make more money, have a better career path, have a happier life, have a better family in the long term, by doing stuff with your hands,” said Victoria Carl, a 25-year-old Albany woman who owns her own car repair show.

Meet her and three other young New York women working — and thriving — in the trades.

Victoria Carl: ‘I own my own repair shop ‘

“They told me I couldn’t do it, so that’s why I did it,” Carl told The Post of going into automotive repair.

At 21, with a 50% investment from her parents, she took over a shop and named it Carl’s Advanced Automotive and Truck Repair Center in Albany.

Now, at age 25, she has four full-time technicians, as well as rolling up her sleeves herself, and is expecting net sales to be over $1 million this year.

“I grew up around cars, racing go karts, restoring trucks with my dad,” she said. “My family knew the previous owners, and they always joked that I would own the shop one day which was funny — until it wasn’t, and it was serious.”

While attending Voorheesville High School, Carl took part in a two-year BOCES (Board of Cooperative Educational Services) program, which allowed her to attend heavy duty truck classes during her junior and senior years of high school.

At first, she encountered resistance.

“My guidance counselor said, ‘Absolutely not, why don’t you go to trade school for nursing or cosmetology or go to college?’ she recalled. “And, honestly, at first it was terrifying when I was the only woman in the class, but ultimately I became more confident.”

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She went on to get an associate’s degree in agricultural diesel technology from University of Northwestern Ohio.

“As an employer now, I see the value of the trades,” she said. “I’m always hiring. I can’t get people in the door fast enough to make good mechanics.”

Carl also sits on the advisory board of the local automotive college, and has seen a shift in how people regard her and her female counterparts.

“These older men are starting to really understand how valuable women are in this trade,” she said. It’s “fantastic.”

Bri Loomis: ‘I helped build the Bills stadium’

At just 19 years old, Loomis is already behind the wheel of some massive trucks.

“I don’t really know what drove me. My dad always told me I could do anything I wanted to,” Loomis, who is based in Chautauqua and drives trucks for New York State in, told The Post. “And now when I see other women out on the road working, we always wave. It’s like our own little community.

Day to day, she works on drainage or ditching crews, driving Mack and International trucks. She also salts and plows state roads in the wintertime — a critical job in harsh Western New York winters.

“I could imagine myself working for the state for a very long time,” she said. “I just love what I do.”

Loomis attended a BOCES program in 11th and 12th grade, spending half the school day learning to operate heavy equipment. Like Carl, she initially encountered some resistance.

“I remember telling my principal that I wanted to do this, and she told me I was too smart for that — that I should go to college or be an engineer. And I told her, ‘No, this is what I want to do,’” she said.

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The highlight of her brief career so far has been helping to build the Buffalo Bills stadium. Last summer, she spent eight weeks operating dump trucks, rock trucks, and bulldozers at the construction site.

She loved the experience, but she ultimately decided to take a job that required her to be less further afield.

“I saw what it was like to work 50, 60 hours a week and never be home,” she said. “I don’t have a family yet, but raising a family is one of my bigger dreams in life too, so I love that I’ve found something that I love that would give me the time to have a healthy work-life balance.”

Shauna Irving: ‘Women are building their cities’

At 33, Irving is the youngest ever president of the women’s club of her electrician’s union, Local Union No. 3, and she’s using her platform to recruit more young women in the field.

“I use every opportunity to encourage girls to be aware of what trade work is, and I always tell them you can pretty much achieve anything,” Irving told The Post. “You can make the same amount of money as a man on the job, which is not guaranteed in other fields.”

Irving grew up in Brooklyn, where her father was a sheet metal worker.

“He’d show me the things that he would build, and I thought, oh man, this is so cool,” she recalled. “My dad’s like a real life Iron Man.”

She thought she might like to be a teacher or a physician, but her father suggested she become an electrician — the profession he described as “like the prima donnas on the job site.” (It’s also a lucrative career, with many electricians in NYC making six figures.)

So, in 2011, after high school, Irving enrolled in a NEW (Nontraditional Employment for Women) program in Manhattan, where she underwent training in collaboration with union apprenticeship programs

Soon she was getting up early to be at job sites at 6 a.m., while her peers were just getting to sleep after long nights of partying

“I was fast tracked into being more responsible,” she said.

After the death of several family members and a personal injury threw her off course, Irving completed her apprenticeship in 2019 and now makes $62/hour plus benefits.

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While the Queens residents said some have questioned her electrician skills because of her sex, she’s also encountered many helpful people.

“Not everyone thinks that we belong there, but there are more brothers that are very supportive,” she said. “I couldn’t make it in my career without the men that have supported me throughout it.”

And, increasingly she’s not the only woman in the room — or on the job site.

“I’ve noticed more and more women getting involved,” she said. “They are starting to see the benefits of coming from diverse backgrounds to build their cities.”

Emiley Filuta: ‘This was my dream since I was 5’

Her father and grandfather were both mechanics, and she knew from a young age that she wanted to follow in their footsteps.

“As long as I can remember, I was always outside helping them fix trucks and cars,” Filuta, a 17-year-old from Troy, told The Post. “I always knew that’s what I wanted to do.”

As a junior in high school, she enrolled in a two-year Automotive Technologies program at Questar III BOCES.

“It was mostly guys so it was socially and personally kind of intimidating at first,” she recalled. “But once everybody got comfortable, everyone was really welcoming. I was actually surprised by how included I felt.”

She took advantage of BOCES’ Youth Apprenticeship Program and got a gig working at the Rensselaer Honda.

Since last summer, she’s made $17 an hour — slightly more than the average summer gig in New York — while gaining valuable training.

“I’ve learned about different specializations,” she said. “I do a wide range of stuff, from smaller stuff like oil changes and tire rotations to minor engine work, which is my favorite.”

This fall, she plans to attend Hudson Valley Community College for a two-year automotive program — and she has no regrets about foregoing the traditional college route.

“Personally I do think that trade school is wiser for some people. No matter what happens as times change, you’re always going to need the trades,” she said. “I love the feeling of being able to look at something and figure out what’s wrong with it. It just feels amazing to know that I can do that.”

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