Break calendars / When is spring break 2027? What the college calendars show
When is spring break 2027? What the college calendars show
Updated October 29, 2026. Built from the official 2026-27 academic calendars of the colleges on BreakShare.
We pulled spring break 2027 from the official academic calendar of 964 US colleges. Most of them are off in one of two weeks in March: 69% start their break the week of Mar 8 or the week of Mar 15. The standard break is nine days, Saturday to Sunday. Region, Easter and Passover move the rest, and a few schools wait until late April.
Two weeks in March cover most colleges
The busiest week is the week of Mar 8, when 346 colleges (36%) are on spring break. The week of Mar 15 is close behind with 317 (33%). Together that is 663 of the 964 colleges we track.
Weeks with fewer than five colleges are left out of the chart (6 colleges in all). Each break is counted in the week of its first weekday, so a break that runs from Saturday, Mar 6 to Sunday, Mar 14 counts as the week of Mar 8.
For every school, week by week, see the spring break 2027 calendar.
The standard spring break is nine days
868 colleges (90%) give a nine-day break: a full week of classes off plus the weekend on each side. Only 18 colleges have a break of a week or less.
A small group of mostly liberal arts colleges takes two full weeks: Bowdoin College, College of Wooster, Connecticut College, Hamilton College, Kenyon College, Seattle Pacific University, Vassar College, Wesleyan University, Whitman College, Williams College and Yale University.
Where you go to school changes the week
Colleges in the South and Midwest tend to break earlier. Schools in the West break latest, partly because colleges on the quarter system take spring break between winter and spring quarter, usually in late March.
| Region | Colleges | Most common week | Share that week | Started by Mar 8 week |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Northeast | 278 | Week of Mar 15 | 36% | 50% |
| Midwest | 196 | Week of Mar 8 | 41% | 53% |
| South | 349 | Week of Mar 8 | 41% | 53% |
| West | 141 | Week of Mar 22 | 35% | 24% |
“Started by Mar 8 week” is the share of colleges whose break starts in the week of Mar 8 or earlier. Regions follow the US Census Bureau's four regions.
Easter, Passover and the outliers
Easter 2027 falls on March 28, at the late end of the March peak. 185 colleges (19%) are on spring break over Easter Sunday, and 71 colleges list a separate Easter break, usually Good Friday through Easter Monday, on top of spring break.
The latest cluster of breaks lines up with Passover, which begins the evening of April 21, 2027. 11 colleges, all in Massachusetts and New York, are off from about Apr 20 to 29, including Baruch College, Brandeis University, Brooklyn College, City College of New York, College of Staten Island (CUNY), Hunter College and 5 more.
Other colleges with breaks in April include Bennington College (Apr 10 to 14), Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology (Apr 10 to 18), Massachusetts Maritime Academy (Apr 16 to 19), Washington and Lee University (Apr 17 to 25) and Hanover College (Apr 24 to May 2).
At the other end, the earliest breaks start in February: Roberts Wesleyan University (Feb 13 to 21), Grove City College (Feb 20 to 28), High Point University (Feb 20 to 28), Houghton University (Feb 20 to 28) and Lincoln University (Pennsylvania) (Feb 20 to 28).
What changes in 2028
227 colleges have already published their 2027-28 calendars. 163 of them (72%) keep spring break in the same week of the year, which puts the dates a couple of days earlier on the calendar. For example, Adelphi University's break moves from Mar 13 to 21 to Mar 11 to 19. 52 (23%) move it a week or more later, and 12 move it earlier. Easter 2028 is April 16, so colleges that tie spring break to Easter will break later in 2028.
Each school page shows both years once the school publishes next year's calendar.
If you're planning a trip with friends
Because breaks cluster in two adjacent weeks, friends at different colleges often miss each other by exactly one week and overlap only on the weekend in between. We measured how often that happens in Do friends at different colleges get the same breaks?
To check your own group, start a group, add everyone's college, and BreakShare lists the days you are all off.
How we counted
Dates come from each college's official academic calendar, linked on every school page. A college's spring break is the first break labeled as spring break that starts between Feb 1 and Apr 30, 2027, counted from the first day without classes through the day before classes resume, including weekends. Separate Easter breaks are not counted as spring break. Colleges in the 50 states, DC and Puerto Rico are included. Schools sometimes revise their calendars; if you spot a date that disagrees with your school's calendar, tell us and we'll check it.
Find the days your friends are all off
Add everyone's college and BreakShare lines up the breaks for you.
Something wrong? Tell us and we'll check it against the school's calendar.