Lehigh: A+ Party School, Flunks Town-Gown Relations

Lehigh University has once again cracked a few of The Princeton Review’s Top Ten college rankings—but not necessarily in the most flattering of ways.

Lehigh ranks 10th in the nation as a “Party School,” according to the Review, right behind Penn State University’s main campus.

Perhaps even more disconcerting is that the school ranked second in the nation in the “Town-Gown Relations Are Strained” category, rising from third a year ago. Only Trinity College has a worse relationship with its host city, Hartford, Conn., according to The Princeton Review.

The Princeton Review annual college rankings book The Best 378 Colleges, 2014 goes on sale on Tuesday with Top 20 rankings in 62 categories, both negative and positive. The rankings are based on a survey completed by 126,000 students, an average of 333 students per school, according to a Review news release.

Lehigh did rank an impressive 77th best in the nation in terms of academics, with 98 percent of its graduates getting jobs within six months of graduation.

But Lehigh also ranked 10th in “Lots of Beer,” 10th in “Lots of Greek Life,” and 13th in “Lots of Hard Liquor,” which all no doubt contributed to a Top Ten Party School ranking that Lehigh was once known for, but had not had in a few years.

“We invite people to come take a tour of the campus, speak to students, speak to faculty and make up their own mind,” said Jordan Reese, a university spokesman, in response to the “party school” tag delivered by the Review.

Reese disputed the Town-Gown Relations ranking, pointing out that the university has formed close relationships with both Donegan Elementary School and Broughal Middle School in South Bethlehem and that students perform 50,000 hours of community service in the neighborhood every year.

“We love the students,” said Mayor John Callahan. “We want them in our businesses and our neighborhoods. I don’t think this is about the relationship between the students and the community.”

However, Callahan was critical of the tax-exempt university’s refusal to contribute financially to the city’s bottom line through a “payment in lieu of taxes.”

Callahan was unsuccessful in convincing Lehigh—or several other tax-exempt entities—to contribute such payments to the city in 2012 as he and City Council struggled to balance the 2013 budget.

“I think there has been a lack of commitment on the part of the university in comparison to the other institutions it aspires to,” said Callahan, pointing out that Princeton University, Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology all contribute financially to their host communities.

MIT, which was where Lehigh University President Alice Gast last worked, has a payment in lieu of taxes agreement with host city Cambridge, Mass. that extends back more than 80 years, Callahan said.