(NewsNation) — While many college students are focused on schoolwork and curriculum delivered in lecture halls, Will Geist’s classes include rigorous physical training and mentoring by law enforcement — part of his goal to become a police officer after college.

Geist is a senior studying criminal justice at Ohio’s Cedarville University, as part of the state’s College to Law Enforcement Pathway Program (CLEPP), a first-in-the-nation initiative that enlists universities to recruit college students to go work for police agencies.

“It was pretty much the law enforcement hiring process while in college,” Geist said.

In addition to schoolwork and training, the students are able to complete the requirements to become police officers while they’re in college, including background checks and psychological examinations.

CLEPP was founded as a pilot program by the state of Ohio in 2020, when much of the country was grappling with how to reform law enforcement. Patrick Oliver, who heads the criminal justice department at Cedarville, collaborated with the heads of local and state agenices about how they could boost recruitment.

“A couple of things became very clear. One is that they’re having a very difficult time recruiting qualified applicants to be law enforcement officers in state and local agencies. Two, it became more difficult to hire minorities and women,” he said.

That’s when they came up with the idea for CLEPP.

“We certainly couldn’t manage or oversee their hiring process for them,” Oliver sad. “But what we could do was pre-screen and develop a pool of qualified candidates and then make them available for agencies that would be willing to be part of a pilot program that would hire them.”

At Cedarville, students apply for and join the CLEPP program as juniors. They then spend the next two years in the program before they apply to a number of police agencies that have opted into participation in the program.

Because CLEPP is still in a pilot phase, only two universities are currently participating: Cedarville and Central State University. Oliver estimated that over the past two years of the program, they will have graduated about seven or eight students into law enforcement. Three recent graduates from 2022 have already been placed with agencies.

“(The) program’s not designed to be a big program because it’s a quality initiative, it’s not a quantity initiative. You’re trying to get the very best students and then take them through a screening process,” he said. “And then those who complete the program and are available to be hired at the end represent the best of the college students.”

While police departments typically don’t require their hires to have college degrees, past research has shown that police officers with college degrees may be less likely to be involved in police shootings.

After graduation, CLEPP students still need to attend their new agency’s police academy, though, they are limited to Ohio-based agencies that are hiring CLEPP graduates.

“That, to me, is the downside of it,” Oliver said.

He noted that the state of Ohio hasn’t decided whether it will be expanding CLEPP yet, but he will be part of a team evaluating the program’s effectiveness.

But for Geist, who has been able to pursue a long-time dream of serving in law enforcement, CLEPP has been an ideal fit.

“I think it’s a great program, and a great opportunity and other states should definitely pursue this,” Geist said.