Hooked on ‘Off Campus’? These Are the Best College Romance Shows to Stream Right Now

If the buzz around Amazon Prime Video’s incoming adaptation of Elle Kennedy’s beloved book series has you restless, you are not alone. ‘Off Campus’ is slated to premiere on May 13, 2026, with its first season adapting ‘The Deal,’ the first novel in the Off-Campus series, and it has already been renewed for a second season ahead of its debut. The combination of hockey romance, fake dating tropes, and messy college feelings has fans of the genre absolutely electric with anticipation.

The good news is that while you wait for Briar University to hit your screen, there is a rich and growing library of shows that scratch exactly the same itch. Whether you are drawn to the raunchy freedom of freshman year, slow-burn romantic tension, or the kind of will-they-won’t-they chaos that keeps you up past midnight, the following college romance shows deliver in every direction.

The YA Book-to-Screen Adaptations Worth Your Time

No show has done more to establish Prime Video as the premier destination for YA romance adaptations than ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty.’ Based on Jenny Han’s book trilogy of the same name, the Prime Video original series ran for three short but successful seasons from 2022 to 2025, focusing on the titular glow-up of Isabel “Belly” Conklin, played by Lola Tung, who finds herself caught in a love triangle between two brothers during summers at Cousins Beach. It is the direct creative ancestor of ‘Off Campus,’ and the DNA is visible in every beach-lit frame.

Prime Video’s recent investment in YA-leaning romance series following the success of ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’ is precisely what fast-tracked the production of ‘Off Campus,’ with the streaming service promising the show would arrive in 2026 after it was ordered to series in October 2024. For fans of Belly’s love triangle chaos, ‘XO, Kitty’ on Netflix offers a similarly breezy companion piece. Created by the same writer as ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty,’ ‘XO, Kitty’ follows Lara Jean’s younger sister Kitty, played by Anna Cathcart, as she attends a boarding school in South Korea, surrounded by crushes and young romances.

Another essential entry in this lane is ‘Tell Me Lies.’ When Lucy Albright starts her freshman year at Baird College, she becomes entangled with upperclassman Stephen DeMarco, a handsome but frankly vile guy who has a mysterious hold over her, making the series steamy, disorienting, and full of characters making absolutely inexplicable decisions. It is the darker, moodier cousin of ‘Off Campus,’ built for viewers who like their campus romance with a side of obsession.

College Romance Shows That Nail Campus Life

When it comes to capturing the specific electricity of freshman year, few shows in recent memory have come as close as ‘The Sex Lives of College Girls.’ Created by Mindy Kaling, this comedy-drama follows four eighteen-year-old freshmen at Essex College in Vermont who struggle with academics and the realities of being young, free, and figuring out their romantic lives for the first time. The show has a fearless, unfiltered energy that shares a lot of tonal DNA with Kennedy’s Off-Campus books.

If you want a college show that digs even deeper into the spectacle of Greek life and campus social politics, ‘Greek’ remains a fan favorite of the genre, narrowing its focus to the fraternity and sorority world at the fictional Cyprus-Rhodes University, complete with relationship drama, love triangles, and plenty of scheming. It is older, but it holds up remarkably well for anyone who appreciates ensemble campus storytelling done with genuine affection for the setting.

Then there is ‘Overcompensating,’ which has arguably become the most talked-about new college comedy of the past year. Created by and starring Benito Skinner, the show follows Benny, a closeted former high school football star and valedictorian who begins his freshman year at the fictional Yates University, masking his true identity while building an unexpected friendship with Carmen, a high school outsider on a mission to fit in. ‘Overcompensating’ earned a 94% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes and was renewed for a second season in September 2025.

Coming-of-Age Streaming Series With Real Emotional Weight

Not every great college romance show is built on raunchy comedy or love triangle mechanics. Some of the most satisfying entries in the genre earn their emotional payoff through slower, more deliberate storytelling. ‘One Day’ on Netflix is one of those rare adaptations that lands almost every note. In this romance, Emma and Dexter meet at a party when they graduate from the University of Edinburgh, and each episode that follows is set a year later in their lives, on the same day, tracking the changing status of their relationship across decades.

‘Sex Education,’ also on Netflix, follows characters learning about their own sexualities and mental health while experiencing first love, with the show balancing genuinely funny set pieces against moments of profound human vulnerability. Though set in a secondary school rather than a university, the emotional architecture of ‘Sex Education’ maps directly onto what makes the Off-Campus books resonate with so many adult readers. Both are really about the terrifying and exhilarating project of becoming yourself.

‘Heartstopper,’ a book-to-screen adaptation of Alice Oseman’s LGBTQ+ young adult graphic novels, follows the budding romance between bookish Charlie Spring and rugby player Nick Nelson across three seasons, two of which boast a 100% Rotten Tomatoes score. It is the warmest, most wholesome entry on this list, and it is proof that a college romance story does not need darkness to be deeply compelling. It just needs two people reaching for each other across the gap.

Hockey Romance Drama and the Rise of a New Subgenre

What makes ‘Off Campus’ genuinely exciting for genre fans is its specific combination of hockey culture and slow-burn romance, a pairing that has developed an almost cult-level readership in the world of romance novels. The show will follow the Briar universe introduced in Kennedy’s books, with each season planned to follow a new couple from the five-book series as they navigate fake dating, heartbreak, love triangles, and hookups-turned-romances. That anthology-style romantic structure, rare on streaming, immediately sets it apart from its peers.

The honesty and specificity of shows built around identity, friendship, and campus life have proven to be a winning formula with both critics and streaming audiences, with genre entries repeatedly outperforming expectations on the major platforms. As the appetite for emotionally intelligent, genre-aware romantic dramas continues to grow, there has never been a better moment to dive into this corner of television. The shows listed here are not filler while you wait for ‘Off Campus.’ They are destinations in their own right.

With ‘Off Campus’ arriving any day now and its second season already locked in, the Briar universe is clearly here to stay, so which of these shows has already claimed the top spot on your watchlist while you wait for Hannah and Garrett’s story to begin?