A new car drove onto the New England Institute of Technology’s Warwick campus on Thursday morning for a lifetime of helping the school’s automotive students learn about the car’s modern technology.

The 2024 Subaru Outback was donated by Subaru of New England as part of its Subaru University program. It marked the first time that Subaru had delivered a vehicle to the institute.

New England Tech is one of six schools in the area to receive Subarus, alongside the University of Southern Maine, Gateway Community College, Manchester Community College, Eastern Maine Community College and Mount Wachusett Community College.

According to Subaru of New England District Service Quality Manager Nate White, the car’s real value for students is that it gives them their first opportunity to work on modern systems such as adaptive driver assistance programs, which include automatic emergency braking, blind spot detection and lane departure warnings.

“As you look around the shop, you can see you’ve got cars like a 2003 BMW, got a Dodge Dakota,” White said. “So some of those vehicles, they’re good to learn basic fundamentals on, but when you start dealing with other systems, those systems aren’t going to be equipped on those vehicles. So for the students to actually be able to work on those systems, because that’s where we’re going [in the industry], it really gives students an opportunity.”

White said that donating the car was a “logical next step” in the partnership between Subaru and New England Tech.

Some former students have begun working for Subaru due to that partnership as well. One of those former students, Cameron McInerney, returned to his alma mater for the delivery. He said that the delivery of the new Subaru was not something that he had ever seen during his time at the school.

“There was one career day that we had, but I couldn’t really attend it,” McInerney said. “But other than that, an event like this, I can’t think of any.”

McInerney, an employee at Anchor Subaru in North Smithfield and graduate of NEIT’s Class of 2016, offered himself as proof that New England Tech helped set their students up for success in the automotive industry. He first got his job through a professor, Derek Martel, and rose up the ranks to Master Technician, his current role.

Having the new car, he said, would only help prepare students more once they’ve graduated.

“It’ll really prepare you for the industry as opposed to going in completely blind,” McInerney said. “We can really start them off and prepare them for their journey and the multiple different avenues in the industry.”

New England Tech also has similar programs with BMW, Ford, Chrysler, Nissan, Audi and Jaguar.

Moving forward, Subaru Director of Parts and Services Operations Ken Scanzio hopes that his company can keep as many New England Tech automotive grads interested in working for them as they can, saying he had been impressed by the work alumni had put out.

Thursday, he said, would hopefully cement the connection between Subaru and the school.

“They’re placing technicians in our stores all the time, and whatever we can do to facilitate this is great,” Scanzio said. “We’d love to take every technician that this school puts out.”