Bolton, MA Tier 2

Tier 2 · strong schools · 28 miles from downtown Boston, about 65 minutes door-to-door at peak · 92% of households own their home.

Bolton, Massachusetts
Bolton · photo via Wikipedia

About Bolton

Bolton is a strong school district west of Boston, about 28 miles from downtown Boston as the crow flies and 65 minutes door-to-door at peak, and an expensive market: roughly $950k for a 4BR house and $535k for a 2BR condo. The residential rate is $16.50 per $1,000, high for Massachusetts, which on a $950k house works out to about $15,700 a year. There is no MBTA rail here, so the commute is by car. The district sits in the 82nd percentile statewide on MCAS, and Niche ranks it 49th of 236. Orchard country on I-495 with Nashoba regional schools.

At a glanceBolton
Schoolsstrong schools · Niche 49th of 236 Tier 2
Commute to Boston~65 min at peak · 28 mi · no rail Tier 4
Home price (4BR)$950k Tier 3
Property tax$16.50 per $1,000 · ≈$15,700/yr Tier 4

The vibe of Bolton

Residential suburbs & small townsmedium confidence

Low-key, lower-density, and well provided with recreation programs, playgrounds and athletic fields; high-cost in housing, upscale in commercial districts, and extensively maintained in public realm, with limited cultural offerings, mostly residential, and moderate gathering options.

Energy4
Compact town center4
Family amenities6
Culture4
Visitor presence2
Public gathering places6

Six 1–10 scales for the intensity of each quality, not a score of how good the place is. Higher just means more of that thing. Family amenities counts public recreation infrastructure, not who lives here; these never use race, ethnicity or other protected characteristics, and never measure safety. See the methodology.

The good

Schools are the draw: a Tier 2 district, and only 23 towns rate higher.

The bad

$16.50 per $1,000 is among the steeper rates we track — about $16k a year on that 4BR.

The ugly

65 minutes each way. That is roughly 11 hours a week in the car — a part-time job you pay for.

Drawn from Bolton's own numbers on this page, not from local reputation — we don't have a strong editorial view on every town.

$950k
4BR / 2BA house (est.)
$720k
3BR townhouse (est.)
$535k
2BR condo (est.)
$16.50
Tax per $1,000 (FY2026)
65 min
Peak drive to Boston (modeled)
No MBTA rail
92%
Homeowners (ACS 2019–23)
5,665
Residents

Where it is

📍 Bolton · Boston is on the same map for scale

What it takes to live here

To buyMedian price (est.)
4BR / 2BA detached house$950k
3BR / 2BA townhouse$720k
2BR condo$535k
Property taxes (FY2026)$16.50 per $1,000 (1.65%)

Each row opens live listings on Redfin for that home type at or below that price, in ZIP 01740. Prices here are modeled estimates; what Redfin shows is the real market today, and the two will not match.

To rentPer month (est.)
4 bedrooms$3,337/mo
3 bedrooms$2,993/mo
2 bedrooms$2,327/mo
1 bedroom$1,880/mo

Rents are HUD FY2026 Small Area Fair Market Rents for Bolton’s ZIP codes — 40th-percentile standard-quality units, so a nice single-family will ask more. Prices are market estimates, not appraisals. Each row opens rentals of that size in ZIP 01740. The search is not capped at the figure beside it: these are benchmark rents rather than asking rents, and filtering to one would hide most of what is actually listed.

Public elementary & middle schools

5 public schools in Bolton — 2 elementary and 3 middle
ElementaryPK–5 · 478 students
ElementaryPK–5 · 464 students
Elementary / middlePK–8 · 728 students
Middle6–8 · 239 students
Middle6–8 · 229 students

Public schools of Bolton’s district, from the DESE 2025–26 enrolment report. These are the schools assigned by address, not by choice. A regional district’s schools appear on every member town’s page; charter schools are public but allocated by lottery and are listed separately below, and the public high school is named in the rankings that follow.

Public School Rankings

Publisher rankingResult
Niche 2026 · Best School Districts#49 of 236 MA districts · A-
SchoolDigger 2025 · City/locality test-score rank#45 of 361 MA localities
U.S. News 2025-26 · Assigned high school#55 of 366 MA · Nashoba Regional High School
Boston Magazine 2025 · Greater Boston high school#32 of 135 · Nashoba Regional High School
Official Massachusetts data (DESE)Result
MCAS achievement82nd percentile statewide
Student growth (SGP)54th percentile
4-year graduation rate94.2%
DESE accountabilityModerate progress toward targets

Each publisher ranks a different unit (district, locality, or a single school) with its own methodology — shown separately, never blended. DESE figures come from the latest official state reports; MCAS percentile is the district’s statewide rank on % Meeting/Exceeding expectations, ELA + Math. Our editorial school tier above is a separate summary.

School building projects: No major full-school construction or comprehensive rebuild with a published total project budget was located in the live MSBA, municipal, school-project, contractor, and local-news review completed in July 2026. This does not mean no school capital work occurred.

Charter School Options

2 charter schools near Bolton
Adjacent town · MarlboroughTuition-free · lottery6–12 · Charter (public, tuition-free) · growth 46th pct · 100% graduate · Substantial progress toward targets · $16k/pupil
Adjacent town · DevensTuition-free · lottery7–12 · Charter (public, tuition-free) · growth 42nd pct · 96.5% graduate · Substantial progress toward targets · $19k/pupil

Charter schools are public and tuition-free. Admission is by lottery, not address — a seat is never guaranteed. Because they are public, the state publishes their results: MCAS percentile, accountability status and per-pupil spending come from DESE. Several charters here are alternative or recovery high schools that enrol students already off-track, so their MCAS and graduation figures are not comparable with a traditional school’s.

Available Private School Options

16 private schools in Bolton and within 12 miles
Adjacent town · HarvardPK–12 · PK/K–12 · 141 students · 10.1:1 student-teacher · ~$18k–$28k/yr (est.)
Adjacent town · Hudson4–12 + SP · Specialized / placement · 20 students · placement/specialized
Adjacent town · Lancaster2–12 + SP · Specialized / placement · 140 students · 3.6:1 student-teacher · placement/specialized
Adjacent town · Lancaster7–12 · Middle / high · 92 students · 11.5:1 student-teacher · ~$28k–$44k/yr (est.)
Adjacent town · Lancaster6–12 · Middle / high · 19 students · 2.8:1 student-teacher · ~$28k–$44k/yr (est.)
Adjacent town · Marlborough7–12 · Middle / high · 111 students · ~$28k–$44k/yr (est.)
Adjacent town · MarlboroughAISNE accreditedK–12 · PK/K–12 · files no enrolment with the state
Adjacent town · MaynardPK–9 · PK/K–12 · 132 students · ~$38k–$50k/yr (est.)
Adjacent town · Maynard9–12 · High school · 11 students · ~$38k–$50k/yr (est.)
Adjacent town · NorthboroughPK–8 · Elementary / middle · 302 students · ~$8k–$15k/yr (est.)
Adjacent town · NorthboroughPK–3 · Elementary · 44 students · ~$16k–$32k/yr (est.)
Adjacent town · NorthboroughPK–5 · Elementary · 26 students · ~$16k–$32k/yr (est.)
Adjacent town · Littleton5–7 · Specialized / placement · 6 students · placement/specialized
Adjacent town · LittletonAISNE accreditedPK–5 · Elementary · files no enrolment with the state
Adjacent town · Acton6–12 · Specialized / placement · 77 students · placement/specialized
Adjacent town · SudburyNEASC accredited6–12 · Middle / high · 67 students · 3.7:1 student-teacher · ~$38k–$50k/yr (est.)

Schools within 12 miles of Bolton, from the MA DESE 2025–26 non-public enrollment report plus the Niche ranking of Massachusetts private high schools. Tuition shown as an estimated range by school type, grades and region — not school-published pricing. A parochial school and an independent day school are priced very differently, so treat these as a starting point and confirm with the school. Niche ranks private high schools only, so an elementary school never carries a number; where one shows a letter instead, that is Niche’s own overall grade, which reaches schools no ranked list does. Neither is a state measure — private schools sit no MCAS and report no results to Massachusetts. That Niche extract is also partial, so a school showing neither was not judged and found wanting; it may simply not have been in it. Student numbers are the figure schools do report, from the same DESE return. Where a student-teacher ratio is shown it is students over full-time-equivalent teachers in the federal Private School Universe Survey, 2021–22, the most recent published — a rough guide to class size, not a class size, and not a ranking either. It is shown only where that survey and the state agree on how many pupils the school has, which is why many schools here have none. Accreditation comes from the AISNE member directory, which records whether a school holds AISNE or NEASC accreditation — the two split the work by age rather than compete, AISNE taking the elementary and middle schools and NEASC the secondary ones. It means an outside body has reviewed the school against published standards on a ten-year cycle. It is not a measure of results, and its absence is not a mark against a school: plenty are not members at all. That directory is also where the schools marked files no enrolment with the state come from. They are real schools that simply make no return to Massachusetts, so the state holds no size for them and this page can show none — and for those, the grade range is read off AISNE’s age bands rather than taken from the school, so treat it as approximate and confirm with the school.

What’s around Bolton

rural284 people per square mile across 19.9 sq mi rural — under 500 people per square mile

What’s hereCount
Cafés and coffee shops
See the list
1
Bookshops0
Museums, theatres and galleries
See the list

1 more is mapped without a name, so it cannot be listed.

2
Colleges and universities0
Public libraryBolton Public Library

Density is Census population over land area. Café, bookshop and culture counts are what is mapped in OpenStreetMap — a volunteer map, so a well-mapped town looks busier than a thinly-mapped one. Read a low count as “little mapped here”, not “nothing here”. Colleges are active degree-granting institutions in the federal IPEDS directory; enrolment and campus housing capacity are its 2023 figures. The public library comes from the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners, which lists library systems rather than every branch. These figures describe places, never the people in them — see our methodology.

Census snapshot
ACS 2019–2023 (via MAPC DataCommon)Share
Homeowner households92%
White (non-Hispanic)90%
Asian (non-Hispanic)4.0%
Latino / Hispanic3.0%
African American (non-Hispanic)1.0%
These figures are neutral census facts, shown for every town equally. They are never used to filter, rank, or recommend towns — see our methodology and the federal Fair Housing Act.

Town spending & civic data

BoltonFigure
Residents5,665
Municipal budgetFY2025, DLS Schedule A$30.2M
School district spendingNashoba district$69.1M
Spending per pupil DESE, total expenditures$21,722
School spending per resident$12,192
Affordable housing units (Ch. 40B inventory)249

Municipal budget is Bolton’s FY2025 General Fund total expenditures from its DLS Schedule A filing — the appropriated operating budget, excluding self-supporting enterprise funds. School spending is the Nashoba district’s total expenditures from the DESE Per Pupil Expenditure report — a regional district, so the spend covers every member town, not just this one. Affordable-housing counts reflect the state Subsidized Housing Inventory. These figures are shown as neutral facts and never used to rank or filter towns.

Data status

FigureStatus
Home pricesCalibrated to the Zillow Home Value Index and Redfin market pages. For comparison, not appraisal.Preliminary
Property tax rateFY2026 residential rate per $1,000, from municipal assessor and treasurer pages.Preliminary
RentsHUD FY2026 Small Area Fair Market Rents, by ZIP.Sourced
School dataDESE published state reports. Publisher ranks carry their own edition and denominator. The school tier is editorial.Sourced
CommuteRail times for the 75 towns we could verify against the MBTA's published timetable are real scheduled journeys, transfers included. Where a town has rail but no verified journey, its rail time is modeled too, and the town page says so. Driving is modeled from distance with corridor adjustments, and station access is a flat allowance. Not measured by a routing API.Measured + modeled

This community was added after the original hundred, so its prices and tax rate are preliminary estimates pending verification against municipal and census records. Data last reviewed . Full detail on every source is in the methodology.

Realistic alternatives to Bolton

Towns you could plausibly shortlist instead: comparable price and school tier, similar size and density, same part of the state.

LittletonTier 2
Also Tier 2, lower tax at $14.50 per $1,000
StowTier 2
Also Tier 2, 8 min closer to Boston
WrenthamTier 2
Also Tier 2, lower tax at $12.50 per $1,000
DunstableTier 2
Also Tier 2, about $150k cheaper
NorfolkTier 2
Also Tier 2, 10 min closer to Boston
HollistonTier 2
Also Tier 2, 10 min closer to Boston

Surprisingly similar in character

Close across the six vibe dimensions but not a substitute — a different price bracket, a different end of the state, or both.

AbingtonTier 3
Both quiet and spread out · $300k cheaper
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