Many agencies are grappling with a shortage of police officers. Although various causes contribute to this understaffing, leaders must explore both immediate and long-term remedies for recruiting in their communities. To this end, while pay and benefits packages can help recruit and retain personnel, one method may produce lasting improvement—offering law enforcement-service-based college scholarships.

Underlying Challenges

Of the many long-term issues facing police recruitment, two escalating obstacles are decreased social prestige and the expense of college.

Law enforcement's prestige has decreased after a lengthy period of high social honor. For decades, children wanted to grow up to be police officers. News stories reported acts of heroism by law enforcement. Movies, television, and novels presented the work of officers as exciting, interesting, and important.

Like military service, consistent displays of social honor have allowed law enforcement to meet recruitment goals, even though the career has never provided pay or benefits that, absent such prestige, would entice new employees into such a dangerous and demanding job.

However, entertainment and news creators are in a period of reflection. Conscious effort is going into avoiding "copaganda," and positive representations of American law enforcement are less common. Unsurprisingly, agencies around the country have reported a noticeable decrease in respect from the public.⁴

Additionally, policing—once a line of work for those with only a high school education—has become a profession where a college degree is increasingly the norm, especially among those ambitious for leadership positions. Unfortunately, the cost of a college education is skyrocketing. Motivated students feel pushed toward undergraduate and graduate programs, incurring high debt. As a result, prospective police recruits’ student loan payments affect the starting salary they will accept.

Service-Based Scholarship Programs

Offering law enforcement-service-based college scholarship programs is a simple concept. Applicants agree to serve as an officer in a jurisdiction for a set number of years in return for money to attend college. In many ways, these programs mimic military Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) scholarships.

Inaugural Programs

In 1989, a pilot program for a local-level law enforcement-service-based scholarship program was instituted for Washington, D.C., and West Virginia. This Police Corps program expanded nationwide as part of the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act.⁵ Administered by states through federal funding, this program aimed to recruit, educate, and train the next generation of local police leadership. The scholarship provided up to $30,000 in funding to cover tuition, room, and board for four-year bachelor's degree programs.

At the time, this amount served as a full-ride scholarship at many public colleges around the country. As part of the program, students were assigned to a local- or state-level law enforcement agency and, upon successfully completing a degree, attended a state-level basic law enforcement training academy for up to 24 weeks. Then, they were assigned to a department to complete a four-year service commitment.⁶

Between 1996 and 1999, U.S. Congress appropriated $90 million for the Police Corps program. Six states were part of the initial rollout, and 27 participated at the Police Corps' peak. The overall program played out slightly differently in each state, depending on the state's investment in terms of administrative and training personnel. Some states, such as Oregon, Utah, and North Carolina, provided Police Corps academies with full-time training personnel.⁷ Others merely administered the scholarship monies but left the facilitation of agency selection and training to the scholarship recipient.

Varying Results

Unfortunately, the Police Corps was undercut by a lack of execution in issuing scholarships. Most appropriated funding in the first four years of the program was not spent. The goal of preserving the budget strictly for recruited recipients led to insufficient administrative staffing at the federal and state levels. Scholarship money cannot be distributed efficiently without personnel advertising, screening, and processing applications.

The program’s bureaucratic shortcomings led to a critical report from the U.S. General Accounting Office in 2000. New funding was never appropriated for the program, and the Police Corps continued to use the unspent funds until the final academy graduated in December 2006.

Over the course of the Police Corps, more than 1,400 individuals participated in the program nationwide, serving in over 350 local- and state-level law enforcement agencies.⁸ However, most scholarships were not awarded in the program's first years. The differences between scholarship award rates between states—even those in the same region—indicate individual state administrative support for the program may have been the biggest impediment, rather than underlying interest on the part of students.

By 1999, North Carolina had filled 100% of approved scholarships and had received permission to fill an additional seven positions with unused funding. Conversely, South Carolina, which also began its program in 1996, filled only 30% of its approved positions in the same period.⁹

Additionally, the Police Corps had unacceptably high rates of scholarship recipients failing to fulfill their terms of service.¹⁰ Reasons could have included difficulties finishing a degree program, inability to complete law enforcement training, or failure to stay with an assigned police agency for the full four-year obligation. Scholarship recipients assigned to lower paying agencies were prone to resigning for higher paying opportunities, leaving the program with the burden of recouping scholarship monies.¹¹

Success rates varied by state, with North Carolina having one of the top retention rates. This has been attributed to a challenging selection process, which included physical, academic, and psychological screenings.¹²

The Police Corps demonstrated that political consensus can be formed for law enforcement-service-based scholarships and that students will flock to well-run programs. However, an inherent difficulty exists on the part of both administrators and applicants in accurately predicting future career commitment and success. The program's shortcomings and dissolution show the vital need for high quality participant selection, administrative investment, planning, and follow-through.

Contemporary Service-Based Scholarship Programs

One of the inspirations for the Police Corps program was the New York City Police Department's (NYPD) Cadet Corps program, which started in 1986. The NYPD provides cadets with up to $20,000 in college tuition assistance, full-time summer employment, and part-time employment during the school year in return for a commitment to complete monthly training and serve for two years as an NYPD police officer.¹³ According to the agency, 2,442 NYPD officers, including one chief of department, are alumni.

Smaller agencies are also experimenting with service-based scholarship programs. Since 2015, the Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Police Department (WSPD) has administered a program that provides scholarships that cover tuition, books, and fees at select universities in return for a commitment to a summer internship with the WSPD and a three-year service agreement with the department after graduation.¹⁴ Since 2021, six students have completed the WSPD scholarship program, and four graduated from the police academy.

This program has not been a cure-all. The WSPD has faced the same recruitment struggle as other law enforcement agencies. It has a vacancy rate of around 25% of the agency's 472 sworn positions.¹⁵ A service-based scholarship for half a dozen students over the course of three years will not, by itself, fill all vacancies. But, when combined with other compensation and recruitment efforts, the WSPD is addressing the current challenge.

The WSPD's program begins deep relationships with highly motivated young people, often before they could otherwise be hired. Further, it communicates to those who see these scholarship recipients that the city of Winston-Salem regards those seeking a career of service to be just as worthy of honor and reward as those striving to serve their country's military.

Conclusion

It is dangerously naive to assume law enforcement agencies will naturally return to full staffing. And, although simple in concept, offering service-based scholarships can be difficult and complicated to implement. Advertising, screening, and processing such programs require dedicated administrators and thoughtful design.

Businesses, charitable organizations, and colleges are all valuable partners in constructing and evaluating a service-based scholarship. Any community seeking to implement such a program would also do well to seek out those who have administered similar programs. The potential return, in terms of recruits and career prestige, makes these service-based scholarship programs worthy of serious consideration.