Men's Squash Colleges in 2026: Best Programs by Division, Cost & Scholarships

Squash isn't scored by depth chart. A team match plays out across a ladder — players ranked one through nine, each facing the opponent at the same position. Rosters average 14.5 players across the sport, but what you're actually recruited for is a place on that ladder, and where you slot in shapes the whole experience.

The squads run nearly identical across both divisions: D1 averages 14.9 players, D3 averages 14.4, and both carry a median of 15. So roster size isn't what separates the divisions — the strength of the players above you is. A mid-ladder recruit at a top D1 program might sit behind a wall of nationally ranked teammates; the same player at a D3 program could open in the top five.

A roster spot is never a promise of a lineup spot — every team carries players who don't make the match nine. As a rough planning guide, dividing the roster by four approximates how many seniors graduate each year: about 3.7 openings per D1 program and 3.6 per D3, which works out to roughly 41 new D1 spots and 76 new D3 spots across the sport annually. Those are estimates, but they show the lineup reloading steadily — and the larger share of incoming room sitting in Division III.

The colleges that field squash read like a roll call of the most selective schools in America, and the academic numbers track. Across Division I, 93% of students finish their degree (the graduation rate) and 97% return after freshman year (first-year retention) — both exceptionally high, the mark of schools where students arrive prepared and stay. Division III posts 87% graduating and 93% returning, strong by any standard.

The strongest academic programs span both divisions, which is the part worth sitting with. In D1, Harvard graduates 98% of its students, admits just 4% of applicants, and reports median earnings of $99,572 six years out — what graduates typically earn a few years after college. Princeton matches the 98% graduation rate at a 5% acceptance rate, and Penn graduates 97% at the same 5%.

Division III holds its own at the very top. MIT, which competes at D3 in squash, graduates 96% of students, admits 5%, and reports the highest early-career earnings of any program here at $131,633. Williams (94% graduating, 8% acceptance) and Bowdoin (95% graduating, 7% acceptance) round out a group where the degree is elite no matter the division letter. If the academics are what draw you, the division isn't the thing to pick — the school is.

Net price is what a family actually pays per year after grants and scholarships come off the sticker — the real number, not the advertised one. Across men's squash, public universities average $18,427 a year and private colleges average $29,004. Since most squash programs are private, plan around the higher figure unless a public option is on your list.

By division, D1 averages $25,744 a year and D3 averages $30,052. But that gap shrinks once you see the schools behind it: nearly every D3 squash program is private, which pulls the D3 average up. Within D1 alone, the public schools average $18,427 against $26,557 for the privates — the same public-versus-private split surfacing again. The division label tells you far less about the bill than whether the state helps fund the school.

The two divisions fund squash in fundamentally different ways. Division I programs spend an average of $641,691 a year — $425,406 on scholarships and $216,285 on everything else, from travel to coaching to facilities. Division III spends $122,959, none of it on athletic scholarships, because D3 awards no athletic aid by rule. At a D3 program, every dollar of help with the bill comes through need-based or academic aid, not a squash scholarship.

That doesn't make D3 the lesser deal. The schools playing D3 squash are among the most generous on financial aid in the country, and their net prices — what a family actually pays — sit close to D1's. It does mean the route to affordability looks different: in D1, athletic money can be part of it; in D3, your case is academic and financial, made through the admissions and aid office rather than a coach's scholarship budget.

All of men's college squash comes to 32 programs in two divisions, clustered across a few Northeastern states, attached to some of the most selective and best-funded colleges in the country. The division a program plays in turns out to tell you the least: it doesn't fix the roster size, it barely moves the net price, and it has nothing to do with the strength of the degree.

What does separate these programs is the detail you have to look for — where you'd play on the ladder, what the school costs your family after aid, whether the academics match what you want, and how a coach sees you fitting in. None of that sorts by division letter. In a sport this small, you can hold all 32 in view at once and judge each on what it actually offers — which is exactly where you want to stand when the offers start to come.

Roster sizes and program finances — scholarship spending, other costs, and total spend — come from the Equity in Athletics Data Analysis (EADA) reports colleges file each year. Estimated yearly openings are derived by dividing a division's average roster by four, a rough proxy for senior turnover; they're planning estimates, not counts of guaranteed spots, since rosters shift with transfers, walk-ons, and players who never make the match lineup.

Cost, graduation rates, first-year retention, post-college earnings, and acceptance rates come from the U.S. Department of Education's College Scorecard and IPEDS. Net price is what a family pays after grants and aid; earnings reflect what graduates typically make a few years out. All figures are computed within men's squash and its divisions, so every comparison here is squash against squash — never borrowed from a larger or different sport.