What You'll Actually Pay
Price after grants
$16,917 to $48,751 a year, depending on income.
College Scorecard 2024 estimate
See the price at your income ↑Sticker price
Full cost before aid: $80,856 a year. Average need-based aid package: $64,879.Aid and debt
43.6%
receive need-based grants
$39,765
average debt at graduation
592
students got merit aid
about 10% of undergraduates
$23,688
average merit award
Getting In
Admit rates
29%
admitted overall
47.4%
admitted Early Decision
26.8%
admitted Regular Decision
Early Decision
Early Decision applicants were admitted at nearly 2x the Regular Decision rate, and Early Decision is binding: you commit to attend if admitted.
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Some of that gap reflects who applies early (recruited athletes, legacy applicants and highly committed students concentrate in that pool), so it isn't proof that applying early would raise any one student's own odds.
Key dates
Transfer Deadlines
Test scores
SAT, middle 50% of those who submitted: 1380–1480 · 33% of the class submitted
ACT, middle 50% of those who submitted: 31–34 · 10% of the class submitted
60% were in the top 10% of their high school class.
What they value
- Very important
- Course rigor (AP/IB)
- GPA
- Important
- Class rank
- SAT/ACT scores
- Personal essay
- Recommendations
- Extracurriculars
- Special talent
- Character
- Volunteer work
- Demonstrated interest
- Considered
- First-gen status
- Legacy status
- Where you're from
- In-state residency
- Work experience
What this means for you
Lehigh rates course rigor as Very Important, and your essay, your recommendations, and your activities as Important.
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Rigor means AP, IB, and dual enrollment carry real weight — make sure your mix of AP or IB courses is strong. A strong essay can differentiate an otherwise average application. Recommendations matter here too — a recommender who knows you well helps. And depth and leadership in a few activities matter more than a long list.
Lehigh rates demonstrated interest 'Important' — real weight in the decision.
Source: Common Data Set 2025–26, Section C7 (admissions factors)
Lehigh just showed you what it values in an application. Use that to write a Why-Lehigh essay that's actually about you — not a template.
Get sourced starting points for your essayStudent Life
41.7% of Lehigh classes have fewer than 20 students.
41.7%
under 20 students
48.6%
20 to 49
9.7%
50 or more
Every class section counts, labs and seminars included; first-year courses tend to be larger. Lehigh CDS 2025–26, I-3.
11:1
student:faculty ratio
Campus life
72.4%
first-years from out of state
60.29%
live on campus
17.83%
of men in fraternities
24.74%
of women in sororities
Who attends
- White59.9%
- Hispanic11.6%
- Asian10.9%
- Multiracial4.6%
- Black4.2%
- Unknown / other2.4%
Enrolled undergraduates; international students are counted separately and not included. Lehigh CDS 2025–26, B2.
Popular majors
Will They Graduate?
75.7% of Lehigh students graduate in 4 years.
75.7%
finish in 4 years
Entered fall 2019
85.2%
finish in 6 years
Entered fall 2019
94.3%
return after first year
Finishing late means paying for extra semesters, so the 4-year rate is the one that shows the cost.
Students with Pell Grants
83.3% finish in 6 years, against 85.2% of all students.
Pell Grant students finish at about the same rate as everyone else.
City & Culture
Beyond the data — what it's actually like to spend four years in Bethlehem.
Lehigh's campus climbs the north slope of South Mountain above Bethlehem, a former steel town of about 75,000 people in the Lehigh Valley.
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The old Bethlehem Steel plant at the foot of the hill is now SteelStacks, an arts and festival campus built in the shadow of the original blast furnaces, and it hosts Musikfest each August — one of the largest free music festivals in the country. The historic Southside strip nearby has the college-town restaurants and shops; downtown Bethlehem across the river adds a preserved 18th-century Moravian district. It's a smaller, post-industrial city rather than a campus-only college town, with Philadelphia and New York both reachable for a weekend.
The City
Mid-size city
Bethlehem, PA
Best For
Notable alumni
Notable Alumni
Lee Iacocca
Led development of the Ford Mustang before becoming Chrysler's CEO and steering its late-1970s turnaround, after earning a B.S. in industrial engineering here.
Class of 1945
Roger Penske
Founded Penske Corporation and built one of the most successful teams in IndyCar and NASCAR history, after a business degree in industrial management here.
Class of 1959
Martin Baron
Led The Washington Post's and The Boston Globe's Pulitzer Prize-winning newsrooms (the Globe's Spotlight investigation was later dramatized in the film of the same name), after a B.A. in journalism here.
Class of 1976
Andrew Knoll
Harvard paleontologist and NASA Mars-mission scientist known for research on Earth's earliest life, after a B.A. here.
Class of 1973
Jesse W. Reno
Invented and patented the first working escalator, after an engineering degree here.
Class of 1883
Alumni selected for name recognition and range of fields. Not from the Common Data Set.
Traditions
Traditions
The Rivalry
Lehigh and Lafayette have played football against each other since 1884, making it the most-played rivalry in major college football. Rivalry Week brings the Turkey Trot at Packer Chapel, spray-painted bedsheets across campus, and the marching band's unannounced classroom-interrupting "Eco-Flame" performances.
Musikfest at SteelStacks
A ten-day, largely free music festival held each August on the site of the old Bethlehem Steel plant, drawing over a million visitors to the city Lehigh calls home.
Founder's Day
An annual campus-wide commemoration of Asa Packer's 1865 founding of the university.
Weekend escapes from Bethlehem
Weekend Escapes
Within driving distance from Bethlehem
Philadelphia, PA
About 1 hour 15 minutesMuseums, sports and a major city, close enough for a day trip.
New York City, NY
About 2 hoursDirect bus service runs from the Lehigh Valley into Manhattan.
Pocono Mountains, PA
About 45 minutesSkiing, hiking and lake towns in the ridge country north of campus.
Getting there and game days
Getting There & Game Days
Nearest airport
Lehigh Valley International Airport (ABE)
15 minutes from campus
For international flights: Philadelphia International Airport (PHL) — about 1 hour 15 minutes by road.
Pro sports nearby
- Philadelphia Eagles NFLAbout 1 hour 15 minutes away
- Philadelphia 76ers NBAAbout 1 hour 15 minutes away
- Philadelphia Phillies MLBAbout 1 hour 15 minutes away
- Philadelphia Flyers NHLAbout 1 hour 15 minutes away
Internships and jobs nearby
Career Proximity
Lehigh's own College of Business and Rossin College of Engineering feed a genuinely pre-professional student body, and the Lehigh Valley itself hosts Fortune 500 headquarters — Air Products and Chemicals and PPL Corporation are both based minutes from campus, alongside B. Braun Medical's U.S. device manufacturing operations. What extends the reach further is distance: Philadelphia and New York City are both close enough for a regular commute, which is why Lehigh, an "upper nontarget" school on Wall Street, still places graduates at firms like J.P. Morgan, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs through an active alumni network and its student-run Dreyfus Portfolio investment fund.
Top Industries Nearby
Major Employers
- Air Products and Chemicals
- PPL Corporation
- B. Braun Medical
- J.P. Morgan Chase
- Citigroup
Philadelphia — about 1 hour 15 minutes by road; New York City is about 2 hours
Who thrives here
Who Thrives Here
Lehigh sits on the north slope of South Mountain above Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, a former steel town whose blast furnaces now anchor SteelStacks, an arts and festival campus a short walk from the Southside dining strip; Philadelphia is about an hour and a quarter south and New York City roughly two hours east. The academic identity is pre-professional and technical — the College of Business and the P.C. Rossin College of Engineering are the two biggest draws, and business, engineering and computer science together make up about 60% of bachelor's degrees awarded. Greek life is a real part of campus life without dominating it: 17.8% of men join a fraternity and 24.7% of women join a sorority, and 60.3% of undergraduates live in university housing. The Lehigh–Lafayette football game, the most-played rivalry in major college football (first played in 1884), still structures the fall calendar, with Rivalry Week traditions like the Turkey Trot and the marching band's Eco-Flame stunts. Financially the school is generous on paper — 96% of demonstrated need met and an average aid package of $64,879 — but that sits alongside a $70,590 sticker price and $39,765 of average debt for those who borrow, both toward the higher end of the catalog. The trade-off worth naming: the four-year graduation rate (75.7%) trails the six-year rate (85.2%) by close to ten points, and Pell recipients graduate within six years at 83.3%, a shade below the 85.2% rate for the class as a whole.