9 Reasons Vermonters Are Leaving the State They Grew Up In
Think of the people you grew up with in Vermont. A few may have already moved away.
Rising costs often play a part.
Here’s what’s pushing hometown Vermonters toward the door.
Note: This is general information, not financial, tax, or insurance advice. Rules and dollar amounts are subject to change.
1. Vanishing Neighborhood Schools
Vermont’s public schools have lost over a quarter of their students since 2005, dropping from about 98,000 to 73,000, according to state education data.
Fewer students mean fewer schools.
State-driven mergers have eliminated dozens of school districts, and small schools that anchor rural towns keep closing or facing closure votes.
For families weighing whether to stay, a town with no school left is a harder sell.
2. Generation Ready to Leave
Only about 600 people moved to Vermont from other countries last year, well short of the 700-plus who moved out to other states.
Survey data suggests the next wave of leavers skews young.
A University of New Hampshire survey found that 63% of young Vermonters, ages 18 to 34, called themselves somewhat or very likely to leave the state within five years.
Two in three said so.
Housing costs topped their list of reasons, with the overall cost of living close behind, and Vermont’s young-adult exodus outpaced every other New England state the poll covered.
3. Home Prices Outrunning Paychecks
Vermont home values rose more than $119,000 between 2019 and 2024, from a median of $233,200 to $352,800, according to the Public Assets Institute.
Household income rose just 15% over that same stretch.
The math flipped fast.
A median-income Vermonter could afford about half the homes on the market in 2019.
By 2024, that share had fallen to about a third, and rents rose right along with sale prices.
More than 40% of Vermont apartments now rent for above $1,500 a month, compared with 15% just five years earlier.
4. Property Tax Jump
Vermont’s average property tax bill is set to rise 11.9% for the 2026-2027 school year, according to a projection from the state’s Tax Department and Joint Fiscal Office.
Vermont’s tax commissioner has publicly called the increase unaffordable for many households.
Homeowners feel it first.
Property taxes already make up close to 40% of all the state and local tax revenue Vermont collects, the single biggest slice, according to the Tax Foundation.
Why Vermont’s Tax Bills Keep Rising
Vermont’s property tax bills keep rising largely because school enrollment keeps falling.
Statewide enrollment has dropped by more than a quarter since 2005, according to the same state data.
But the buildings, staff, and buses a district needs don’t shrink at the same rate.
Fewer students means each one costs more to educate, and since Vermont schools run mostly on property tax dollars, that per-pupil jump lands directly on homeowners’ tax bills.
5. Sky-High Health Premiums
Vermont’s individual health insurance premiums rank among the priciest in the country before subsidies.
The average sticker price runs more than double the national rate, based on federal marketplace data.
Not everyone gets that break.
About 89% of the roughly 30,500 Vermonters who buy coverage on the individual marketplace need a federal subsidy just to bring that bill down to something workable.
6. Child Care Shortage
Vermont families in counties like Franklin and Essex face some of the tightest child care shortages in the state.
Demand there runs up to three times the number of available slots.
Infant slots are the tightest.
Some centers report waitlists running 30 families deep for infant care alone.
Vermont has added roughly 1,700 new child care slots and 100 new programs over the past three years.
The shortage remains worst in rural counties, where the gap between openings and need is widest.
7. Wage Gap
From 2000 to 2024, Vermont’s economic output per worker rose 47%, while worker pay rose just 34%, according to the Public Assets Institute.
That gap adds up fast.
It works out to roughly $6,500 a year for every worker.
Vermont is also one of only four states where total jobs still haven’t returned to pre-pandemic levels.
8. Heating Oil Spike
Vermont heating oil prices jumped from under $3.50 a gallon in September to more than $5.50 by April this past winter.
That’s a 57% jump in a single heating season.
Gas prices rose too.
Gasoline rose about 50 cents in a single month this spring, to roughly $4.50 a gallon, about half again what it cost a year earlier.
Fuel-assistance recipients who paid under $500 for an oil delivery last year are now seeing bills top $600 for the same amount.
Psst! How much do you know about Vermont’s history? Take our quiz and see how many you can get right.
Quiz
Vermont History Test
Answer these questions about Vermont’s history and quirks. We bet you can’t get them all right. Prove us wrong?
Before Vermont joined the United States in 1791, it spent 14 years governing itself as what?
9. Heavy Overall Tax Load
Vermont ranks 42nd out of 50 states on the Tax Foundation's 2026 State Tax Competitiveness Index, weighed down by a top income tax bracket of 8.75%.
That's a steep bracket.
State and local governments in Vermont collect about $8,462 in taxes for every resident each year, among the highest per-capita totals in the country.
The property tax bill, the income bracket, and the sales tax all land on the same taxpayer at the same time.
That's before counting the property tax increase already on the way for next year.
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That meeting never stopped, and it still runs on rules that catch first-time visitors completely off guard.
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