Lehigh is 41st among national universities and Lafayette is 36th among national liberal arts colleges, the magazine decides.
So, where did your favorite college rank in the 2014 U.S. News & World Reports list?
Well, Lehigh University in Bethlehem was ranked 41st among national universities and 30th in best value. Lehigh was not in the top 10 engineering schools.
Lafayette College in Easton was ranked 36th among national liberal arts colleges. Muhlenberg College in Allentown was 65th on that list and Moravian College in Bethlehem was 138th.
Cedar Crest College in Allentown was 15th among regional colleges in the North, while Centenary College in Hackettstown was ranked but that figure was not released among regional universities in the North.
Now, how closely were these schools scrutinized before the rankings were revealed?
Easton is called "a quiet, rural town." The magazine doesn't mention the six homicides last year, the drug and gang problems or the fact that the Lehigh Valley is the third largest metropolitan area in Pennsylvania. It doesn't get into the burgeoning restaurant scene or the recovering apartment market Downtown. It also doesn't go into concerns about student binge drinking. But it does mention the Easton Farmers' Market as part of its focus on the rural nature of the "town," which in fact is a somewhat gritty city with 26,000 residents.