College lacrosse is played by student-athletes at colleges and universities in the United States and Canada. In both countries, men's field lacrosse and women's lacrosse are played at both the varsity and club levels. College lacrosse in Canada is sponsored by the Canadian University Field Lacrosse Association (CUFLA) and Maritime University Field Lacrosse League (MUFLL), while in the United States, varsity men's and women's lacrosse is governed by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) and National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA). There are also university lacrosse programs in the United Kingdom sponsored by British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) and programs in Japan.
In the U.S., as of the 2021–22 academic year, there were 74 NCAA-sanctioned Division I men's lacrosse teams, 75 Division II men's lacrosse teams, and 247 Division III men's lacrosse teams. There are 120 Division I women's lacrosse teams, 114 Division II women's lacrosse teams, and 291 Division III women's lacrosse teams. There were also 21 men's programs and 11 women's programs at two-year community colleges organized by the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) and a growing number of National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) four-year small college programs.
As of 2016–17, there were 184 collegiate men's club teams competing through the Men's Collegiate Lacrosse Association (MCLA), including most major universities in the United States without NCAA men's programs, organized into two divisions and ten conferences. Schools that feature an NCAA Division I FBS football team must play in Division 1, while most other teams compete in Division 2. There are 225 collegiate club teams for women organized by the Women's Collegiate Lacrosse Associates (WCLA).
History of college lacrosse
The first intercollegiate game in the United States was played on November 22, 1877 between New York University and Manhattan College. Lacrosse had been introduced in upstate New York in the 1860s. Lacrosse was further introduced to the Baltimore area in the 1890s. These two areas continue to be hotbeds of college lacrosse in the U.S. An organizing body for the sport, the U. S. National Amateur Lacrosse Association, was founded in 1879. The first intercollegiate lacrosse tournament was held in 1881, with Harvard beating Princeton, 3–0, in the championship game. New York University and Columbia University also participated. In 1882 three colleges formed a league called the Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association (ILA), which four other colleges soon joined. From this point through 1931, collegiate lacrosse associations chose an annual champion based on season records. In 1894, the Inter-University Lacrosse League (IULL) began play using slightly different rules.
The two leagues merged in December 1905 to form the 8-team United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse League. The USILL was a closed-membership league, which excluded several lacrosse powers, such as the U.S. Naval Academy. The national championship was officially bestowed only upon teams that were included in the membership of these organizations. In 1912, the USILL established Northern and Southern Divisions and began conducting a post-season playoff. Harvard defeated Swarthmore, 7–3, in the first formal playoff. This system continued through 1925. As Navy was not a member of the USILL, its teams were not eligible for the championship, even though Navy had the best collegiate record in many of those years. Navy was undefeated from 1917 through 1923, a stretch of 40 games with one tie.
The USILL was replaced by the United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association in March, 1926, as an open-membership governing body. Six more teams became new USILA members, in addition to the former USILL teams. The USILA bestowed gold medals upon the teams that it selected as national champions through the 1931 season. No official champions were named from 1932 through 1935. In 1936, an award was established in the memory of a Baltimore sportswriter to recognize annually the most outstanding teams. From 1936 through 1972, the USILA executive board awarded the Wingate Memorial Trophy to the national champions.
From at least 1951 if not earlier, lacrosse divisions were named after legendary lacrosse men. These included the Cy Miller, Laurie D. Cox, and Roy Taylor Divisions, commonly referred to as A Division, B Division and C Division. All college teams were placed in one of the three divisions, dependent upon their records, schedules, and success for the preceding five years, and a point system was created. Any team of the three divisions was eligible to win the national championship, but this was virtually impossible for non-Division I teams. A Division II team, playing several Division I teams, might have been able to achieve it. A team's record was required to include six games against teams in its own division. Teams were realigned every three years, again reflecting their records. All schools were eligible for the national rankings. The team that achieved the highest point total each year, however, was not guaranteed a solo national championship. The system served as guidance to the USILA executive board, who chose co-champions on frequent occasions. This point system prevailed with modifications until the NCAA in the early 1970s established the playoff system for determining champions.
At its 1969 annual meeting in Baltimore, the United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association voted for its first playoff tournament to determine a national champion. In 1971, the NCAA began sponsoring men's lacrosse and began holding an annual championship tournament for Division I schools. The USILA conducted a small college tournament for non-Division I schools in 1972 and 1973. In 1974, the NCAA took over the sponsorship of this tournament through the 1979 season, with separate tournaments being conducted in both 1980 and 1981 for Divisions II and III teams. The Division II tournament then was discontinued until returning in 1993. Michael Brown, LSM/D, holds record for attending every NJCAA school besides for Onondaga CC.
Participation and growth
Lacrosse is one of the fastest growing sports in America, at the collegiate level. Across both men’s and women’s collegiate athletic programs, lacrosse experienced greater growth in the number of teams than any other sport. The number of women’s lacrosse teams more than doubled between 2003 and 2023, rising from 256 to 541 teams. Men’s lacrosse experienced nearly a 70% increase during the same 20-year period, increasing from 236 to 398 teams. The growth across all three NCAA lacrosse Divisions has increased the scholarships available to students seeking to continue playing lacrosse at the collegiate level. As of 2017, the total college player population of both men and women increased from 253,931 in 2001 to 826,033 in 2016. The linear growth can be seen in the graph right side.
Scholarships According to NCAA, 51% of student athletes receive athletic aid in some capacity. The NCAA limits the number of scholarships that can be awarded to any athletic team. Not every team is fully-funded, and for teams that are not fully funded, even fewer scholarships can be awarded. The funding per team is not public information, so players must communicate with coaches about whether they are eligible and will be awarded an athletic scholarship Ivy League schools do not provide athletic scholarships in any capacity.
Lacrosse, along with most other Division I sports and all Division II sports, is an equivalency scholarship sport, meaning that coaches pool the scholarship money they are provided and award it to both new recruits and current players. This model is different than a head-count sport, where every member of the team is guaranteed a full-ride scholarship. Combining an academic merit scholarship with athletic performance scholarships is how students have the opportunity to achieve a full ride in equivalency sports. +Maximum men's scholarships available per sport by divisionDivision IDivision IIDivision IIILacrosse (Equivalency)12.610.8 –Ice Hockey (Equivalency)1813.5 –Basketball (Headcount)1310 –Soccer (Equivalency)9.99 – Football (Headcount in FBS only) 85 (FBS)63 (FCS) 36 –Baseball (Equivalency)11.79 – +Maximum women's scholarships available per sport by divisionDivision IDivision IIDivision IIILacrosse (Equivalency)129.9 – Rowing (Equivalency) 20 20 –Ice Hockey (Equivalency)1818 –Basketball (Headcount)1510 – Equestrian (Equivalency) 15 15 –Soccer (Equivalency)149.9 –Field Hockey (Equivalency)126.3 –Volleyball (Headcount)128 – +Breakdown of scholarship value per athlete and in total by division (2020)Athletic divisionNumber of schoolsMale athletesFemale athletesAverage male scholarshipAverage female scholarshipValue of scholarshipsDivision I35790,24174,986$18,013$18,722$2.76 BillionDivision II30365,25546,498$6,588$8,054$752 MillionDivision III445106,84376,406 – – –
NCAA men's lacrosse The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is the largest association and governing body of collegiate athletics in the United States. The NCAA holds lacrosse championships for all three Divisions in men's and women's lacrosse. As of the 2023 season (2022–23 school year), the NCAA has 398 men's lacrosse programs and 528 women's lacrosse programs.
Division I men's lacrosse
In the 2024 season, Division I men's lacrosse had the smallest number of teams compared to the Division II and Division III levels. The most recent 2024 NCAA lacrosse season involved 78 NCAA Division I men's lacrosse teams organized into 10 conferences. These teams are heavily concentrated in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions, and only four teams are not in the Eastern Time Zone (Air Force, Denver, Marquette, and Utah; a fifth school with that distinction, Lindenwood, dropped men's lacrosse after the 2024 season).
From 1936 through 1970 the United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association (USILA) selected the Wingate Memorial Trophy winners as national champions based on regular season records. Beginning in 1971, the National Collegiate Athletic Association began holding an annual championship tournament. Cornell took the first title over Maryland, 12–6. Syracuse has 11 Division I titles (*one vacated later), Johns Hopkins 9, Virginia (7) and Princeton 6. The NCAA national championship weekend tournament normally draws over 80,000 fans. The most recent national champions from 2025 are the Cornell Big Red.
The most recent change to the conference lineup was announced in October 2023, when the Northeast Conference (NEC), which had dropped the sport after the 2022 season, reinstated the sport effective with the 2025 season. The last previous change was announced during the 2022 NCAA tournament, when the Atlantic 10 Conference (A-10) made official its widely-rumored sponsorship of men's lacrosse effective in the 2023 season. This move, along with other moves during the 2020s conference realignment, led to the NEC and Southern Conference dropping men's lacrosse after the 2022 season, although as noted the NEC's elimination of men's lacrosse proved to be temporary.