Hudson, MA Tier 3

Tier 3 · solid schools · 25 miles from downtown Boston, about 60 minutes door-to-door at peak · 75% of households own their home.

Hudson, Massachusetts
Hudson · photo via Wikipedia
4BR house
$700k
$540k townhouse · $400k condo
Cheaper than 52% of MA towns
Property tax
$9,900/yr
$14.14 per $1,000 on that house
Higher than 60% of MA towns
To downtown Boston
60 min
No MBTA rail
Closer than 52% of MA towns
Schools
29th pct
growth 48th · 87% graduate
Behind 71% of MA districts

marks the Massachusetts median of $750k for a 4BR, $9,100 in tax and 62 min to Boston. Prices and the tax bill are estimates, not appraisals.

About Hudson

Hudson is a middle-tier school district west of Boston, about 25 miles from downtown Boston as the crow flies and 60 minutes door-to-door at peak, and moderately priced by Massachusetts standards: roughly $700k for a 4BR house and $400k for a 2BR condo. The residential rate is $14.14 per $1,000, on the high side for Massachusetts, which on a $700k house works out to about $9,900 a year. There is no MBTA rail here, so the commute is by car. The district sits in the 29th percentile statewide on MCAS. A rail-trail downtown that's become one of MetroWest's favorite main streets.

The good, the bad, the ugly

From the data
Good

About $700k for a 4BR, under the $750k median of our set.

Bad

About 60 minutes to downtown at peak, and no rail to escape it.

Ugly

About $10k a year in property tax — the one housing bill that never amortises, never refinances and never ends.

Schools and child caresolid schools · 29th MCAS · 4 schools

Public elementary & middle schools

4 public schools in Hudson — 3 elementary and 1 middle
ElementaryPK–4 · 411 students
ElementaryPK–4 · 323 students
ElementaryPK–4 · 262 students
Elementary / middle5–7 · 531 students

These are assigned by address, not chosen. A regional district’s schools appear on every member town’s page. Charters are public but allocated by lottery, and are listed separately below.

DESE 2025–26 enrolment report

Before kindergarten

Licensed programs 8 center-based · 21 family child care29
Licensed places, all ages The ceiling these programs may operate to811
Places in centers Commercial premises, licensed room by room641
Places in family child care A provider’s own home, mixed ages together170
Infant & toddler places in centers Age bands ending under three; family programs are not broken down130
Preschool places in centers Roughly 33 months to kindergarten268

Licensed capacity is not availability. These are places programs may operate, not vacancies. The age split covers centers only — family programs report no breakdown, so 130 is a floor on infant care here, not a count of it.

MA Dept. of Early Education and Care, pulled 2026-08-02 · search current openings

Public School Rankings

Publisher rankingResult
SchoolDigger 2025 · City/locality test-score rank#220 of 361 MA localities
Boston Magazine 2025 · Greater Boston high school#85 of 135 · Hudson High School
Official Massachusetts data (DESE)Result
MCAS achievement29th percentile statewide
Student growth (SGP)48th percentile
4-year graduation rate87.4%
DESE accountabilityModerate progress toward targets

Each publisher ranks a different thing. A district, a locality, or one high school, each by its own method — shown separately, never blended.

MCAS percentile is the district’s statewide rank on % Meeting/Exceeding expectations, ELA + Math.

Latest school building project: Quinn Middle School was completed in November 2013; total project budget was about $44.1 million. MSBA project list.

Charter School Options

1 charter school near Hudson
Adjacent town · MarlboroughTuition-free · lottery6–12 · Charter (public, tuition-free) · growth 46th pct · 100% graduate · Substantial progress toward targets · $16k/pupil

Admission is by lottery, not address — a seat is never guaranteed. Some charters here are alternative or recovery high schools enrolling students already off-track, so their MCAS and graduation figures are not comparable with a traditional school’s.

Public and tuition-free; results from DESE

Available Private School Options

17 private schools in Hudson and within 12 miles
In Hudson4–12 + SP · Specialized / placement · 20 students · placement/specialized
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.)
St. Mark ↗ searchNiche #11 · A+
Adjacent town · SouthboroughNEASC accredited9–12 · High school · 373 students · 5.7:1 student-teacher · ~$18k–$28k/yr (est.) · ~$70k/yr boarding
Adjacent town · SouthboroughAISNE accreditedK–9 · PK/K–12 · 490 students · 6:1 student-teacher · ~$28k–$44k/yr (est.)
Adjacent town · SouthboroughPK–12 + SP · Specialized / placement · 203 students · 1:1 student-teacher · placement/specialized
Adjacent town · SudburyNEASC accredited6–12 · Middle / high · 67 students · 3.7:1 student-teacher · ~$38k–$50k/yr (est.)
Adjacent town · Sudbury6–12 · Middle / high · files no enrolment with the state
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 · FraminghamPK–8 · Elementary / middle · 214 students · ~$8k–$15k/yr (est.)
Adjacent town · FraminghamPK–12 + SP · Specialized / placement · 126 students · placement/specialized
Adjacent town · FraminghamAISNE accreditedPK–6 · Elementary / middle · 125 students · ~$18k–$30k/yr (est.)
Adjacent town · FraminghamPK–6 · Elementary / middle · 68 students · ~$32k–$45k/yr (est.)

Tuition is an estimated range by school type, not school-published pricing — a parochial school and an independent day school are priced very differently. Private schools sit no MCAS, so no figure here is a state measure.

How to read this list

Schools within 12 miles of Hudson, 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.

The vibe of Hudson

College & cultural townsCompact centreStrong culturehigh confidence

Active, town-centered/mixed, and well provided with recreation programs, playgrounds and athletic fields; mixed in housing stock, from multifamily properties and smaller condos to higher-priced single-family homes, with visible cultural identity, some visitor activity, and strong gathering-place network.

Energy7
Compact town center7
Family amenities6
Culture8
Visitor presence5
Public gathering places8

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.

What it takes to live here$700k 4BR · ≈$9,900 tax
To buyMedian price (est.)
4BR / 2BA detached house$700k
3BR / 2BA townhouse$540k
2BR condo$400k
Property taxes (FY2026)$14.14 per $1,000 (1.41%)

These are modeled estimates, not listings. Each row opens the real Redfin market in ZIP 01749, and the two will not match.

To rentPer month (est.)
4 bedrooms$3,390/mo
3 bedrooms$3,080/mo
2 bedrooms$2,560/mo
1 bedroom$2,160/mo

These are benchmark rents, not asking rents. HUD sets them at the 40th percentile of standard-quality units, so a nice single-family will ask more — which is why the links are not capped at the figure beside them.

HUD FY2026 Small Area Fair Market Rents for Hudson’s ZIP codes

Home values over the last decade

Hudson home values, 2016–2026Zillow Home Value Index for Hudson, 2016 to 2026: $357k to $632k, up 77 per cent.$324k$494k$665k20162026
Hudson, 2016 to 2026: $357k to $632k, up 77% in 10 years — 5.9% a year compounded.
If a $700k house grew at…5 yrs10 yrs15 yrs30 yrs
5.9% — Hudson’s own last decade$932k$1.24M$1.65M$3.91M
3% — inflation, holding its real value$811k$941k$1.09M$1.70M

These are not forecasts. They are what $700k becomes at a fixed rate, shown for two rates because nobody can tell you which one the next thirty years will bring. The last decade included a period of unusually fast growth across Massachusetts; repeating it for thirty years would be a strong assumption. The inflation row is the conservative case — a house that holds its value and earns nothing beyond it. History from the Zillow Home Value Index, a whole-town index that sits at a different level from the 4BR estimate above and is used here for the trend.

What’s around Hudson

suburban1,743 people per square mile across 11.5 sq mi suburban — 500–2,000 per square mile

What’s hereCount
Cafés and coffee shops
See the list
6
Bookshops0
Museums, theatres and galleries0
Colleges and universities0
Public libraryHudson 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 households75%
White (non-Hispanic)79%
Asian (non-Hispanic)5.8%
Latino / Hispanic6.0%
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

HudsonFigure
Residents20,092
School district spending$62.7M
Spending per pupil DESE, total expenditures$23,470
School spending per resident$3,121
Affordable housing units (Ch. 40B inventory)882

Schools: DESE Per Pupil Expenditure · Affordable units: state Subsidized Housing Inventory. Never used to rank or filter towns.

Realistic alternatives to Hudson

AttleboroTier 3
Also Tier 3, about $80k cheaper
MaynardTier 3
Also Tier 3, 6 min closer to Boston
TewksburyTier 3
Also Tier 3, 8 min closer to Boston
BellinghamTier 3
Also Tier 3, $675k for a 4BR and 65 min to Boston
FraminghamTier 3
Also Tier 3, about $100k more expensive
MilfordTier 3
Also Tier 3, $650k for a 4BR and 63 min to Boston

Surprisingly similar in character

ChicopeeTier 4
Both social and cultural · $280k cheaper, 56 min further out
NatickTier 2
Both social and cultural · $300k dearer

Read next

Massachusetts towns with a real downtown under $1M
A genuinely active center and a 4BR under $1M — a combination only seventeen towns in the state manage.
6 min read
Test scores tell you who moved in. Growth tells you what the school did.
Scores in the 29th percentile but moves children in the 48th — this district does more than its test scores suggest.
7 min read
The district spending the most per pupil is not the best one
Spends $23,470 per pupil — 71st percentile for money, 29th for results. The two barely track each other statewide.
7 min read
A paid-off condo and private school, or a mortgage in a better district?
A condo here is $400k against $700k for the house — the gap that pays for a lot of tuition, worked through in full.
10 min read
Data statusreviewed August 14, 2026
FigureStatus
Home pricesCalibrated to the Zillow Home Value Index and Redfin market pages. For comparison, not appraisal.Estimate
Property tax rateFY2026 residential rate per $1,000, from municipal assessor and treasurer pages.Sourced
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 town’s prices and tax rate are sourced as described in our methodology. Data last reviewed . Full detail on every source is in the methodology.

Find your town →