spring jpa query with pageable, sort and filter and return projection - spring

Question

I am using Spring Data Rest with org.springframework.boot 1.5.2 with hibernate 5.2.9. What i am trying to achieve is a way to use JPA to query with sort, filter, pageable that can return a subset of the entity or return a projection.
Below is the code that uses:
(1) Specification for filtering
(2) Projection and Excerpts to apply projection in collection
(3) The controller that tries to return Page,
but it only works if the return type is Page.
where Student is the entity, StudentLite is the projection
Question is:
(1) How to have a query+sort+filter that returns Page projection
(2) Possible to apply the Excerpts to just that query?
(3) Any way to use #JsonView in #RepositoryRestController to solve?
StudentRepository class
#RepositoryRestResource(excerptProjection = StudentLite.class)
public interface StudentRepository extends PagingAndSortingRepository<Student,Long>,
JpaSpecificationExecutor<Student> {}
and
StudentSpecification class
public class StudentSpecification {
public static Specification<Student> filteredStudentList(StudentSearch c) {
final StudentSearch criteria = c;
return new Specification<Student>() {
#Override
public Predicate toPredicate(Root<Student> root, CriteriaQuery<?> query, CriteriaBuilder cb) {
Join<Student, Contact> joinContact = root.join(Student_.contact);
Path<Contact> contact = root.get(Student_.contact);
Path<String> officialId = root.get(Student_.officialId);
Path<String> name = root.get(Student_.name);
Path<String> email = contact.get(Contact_.email);
Path<String> phoneMobile = contact.get(Contact_.phoneMobile);
final List<Predicate> predicates = new ArrayList<Predicate>();
if(criteria.getOfficialId()!=null) {
predicates.add(cb.like(officialId, "%" + criteria.getOfficialId() + "%"));
System.out.println("==not null...criteria.getOfficialId()="+criteria.getOfficialId()+" :officialId="+officialId.toString());
}
if(criteria.getName()!=null) {
predicates.add(cb.like(name, "%"+criteria.getName()+"%"));
}
if(criteria.getEmail()!=null) {
predicates.add(cb.like(email, "%"+criteria.getEmail()+"%"));
}
if(criteria.getPhoneMobile()!=null) {
predicates.add(cb.like(phoneMobile, "%"+criteria.getPhoneMobile()+"%"));
}
return cb.and(predicates.toArray(new Predicate[predicates.size()]));
}
};
}
}
and the controller where the class is annotated with #ExposesResourceFor(Student.class) and #RepositoryRestController :
#RequestMapping(method=RequestMethod.GET)
public #ResponseBody Page<StudentLite> getStudentList(Pageable pageable, #RequestParam Map<String,String> criteria) {
StudentSearch ss = new StudentSearch(criteria);
// Below statement fail, as findAll(...) is suppose to return Page<Student>
Page<StudentLite> pagedStudentLite = studentRep.findAll( StudentSpecification.filteredStudentList(ss), pageable);
return pagedStudentLite;
}