NCAA, NAIA, NJCAA: What's Best For You?

NCAA

483 colleges affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association have lacrosse programs. NCAA Division 1 schools are allowed to offer 12.6 scholarships to men and 12 to women. NCAA Division 2 institutions allocate 10.8 lacrosse scholarships for men and 9 for women. At the Division 3 level there are 273 NCAA colleges that have a lacrosse program, but no athletic scholarships are available at the D3 level.

NCAA College Lacrosse is classed as an equivalency sport which means that the lacrosse scholarships are usually shared among multiple athletes but there are still some full ride opportunities available for the right player. Most NCAA DI college lacrosse programs have a roster of about 45 players. With only 12.6 scholarships per team you can see the difficulty in landing a full-ride lacrosse scholarship, but the chances of getting some athletic scholarship money is pretty good if you are able to make a college team.

NAIA

There are 22 college lacrosse programs at NAIA colleges but it is not a sport that offers scholarships.

NJCAA

Community college lacrosse is both competitive and exciting and could lead to a transfer to a NCAA lacrosse program in the future. 32 junior colleges play intercollegiate lacrosse; they can offer 20 scholarships to both men and women.