“Ignorance is a cure for nothing.”
Drag the slider to change the share of UMass’s full-time students, undergraduate and graduate, who live on campus, and see what it means for Amherst’s budget and the average homeowner’s tax bill. Under Proposition 2½, what moves the budget is new taxable construction, not simply who lives where.
Net change per year at every on-campus share. The dot is your setting; the dashed line is today.
Assumes surpluses go back as tax relief and deficits are covered by an override.
Each line’s effect on the town budget at your setting. New taxable value dominates whenever new buildings are taxable.
Estimates, not forecasts. Built from public budget, assessor and UMass figures.
Under Proposition 2½, Amherst’s levy is capped each year. It can grow beyond the annual allowance only through “new growth”: the value of new construction and renovation times the tax rate, which permanently raises the cap. A drop in property values doesn’t shrink the levy; it shifts it onto other taxpayers.
Students counted are full-time undergraduates and graduate students; online and part-time students are left out because most don’t live here. UMass has cited a higher on-campus share, which appears to count undergraduates only.
Moving students off campus means building new taxable apartments. Each bed adds assessed value, estimated from rents by the income approach, and that value becomes new growth. The town takes on police, fire/EMS and public-works costs and loses UMass payments tied to campus housing.
Moving students onto campus frees rental houses and apartments for families. That adds public-school students, counted at marginal rather than average cost (graduate students mostly free apartments, which bring fewer children than houses), and lowers property values, which pushes the tax rate up. It creates almost no new growth unless the new dorms are privately operated and taxable.
Points between today and each extreme are scaled in proportion. Real costs arrive in steps (a fire crew, a classroom), so small shifts are less precise than the totals.
| Figure | Value | Source |
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| Shift | Line item | Best case | Central | Worst case | Basis |
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Estimates, not forecasts. Model inputs as of October 2026.