Education and engineering colleges again among nation's best

Lehigh’s College of Education and P.C. Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science have once again been listed among the top 50 graduate schools in the country by U.S. News & World Report.

In its recently released 2012 graduate school rankings, U.S. News & World Report ranked the College of Education 35th out of 279 education colleges surveyed (compared to 41st last year). The P.C. Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science was ranked 43rd out of 198 colleges of engineering that grant doctoral degrees (42nd last year).

The rankings will appear in the magazine’s “America’s Best Graduate Schools for 2012” issue, which will be available on newsstands April 5.

Gary Sasso, dean of the College of Education, noted that the college is consistently recognized as one of the best in the nation. “Our faculty and staff perform at a very high level, we attract excellent students, and our students go on to noteworthy careers,” he said.

S. David Wu, dean and Iacocca Professor of the P.C. Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science, said he was pleased that the college’s research and graduate programs continue to be ranked with top-tier research universities.

“I am particularly pleased to see a notable improvement in our programs as reflected by the higher marks in seven out of 11 ranking criteria,” he said. “Graduate education in engineering is highly competitive, with advances in areas such as health, energy, environment and infrastructure occurring at a pace faster than ever before. To stay competitive we must continue to invest in our people, programs and facilities.

Lehigh has also been recognized by U.S. News & World Report as one of the nation’s outstanding research universities. The university was ranked No. 37 in the 2011 edition of the magazine’s “Best Colleges” edition, which was published in August 2010.