14 Distillation Guidebook Co-Lab • 9.18–9.19 2025 churches and are occupying existing buildings in the neighborhood. Yale similarly has expanded through small land acquisitions, leaving institutions with holdings that dwarf most private landowners in their cities. Today, the University of Michigan owns 1,920 acres in Ann Arbor; Lehigh’s 2,355 acres make it Bethlehem’s largest property owner; and Yale controls 1,108 acres across 300 parcels in New Haven. In all these cases, none of this land generates tax revenue. Being 501(c) (3) nonprofit organizations, these institutions do not pay property taxes on their holdings. With a sizable percentage of their land exempt from taxes, cities receive far lower revenues. Participants from Meadville, Providence, and Ann Arbor directly mentioned their institutions “tax-exempt” status, which is especially problematic given the amount of land these institutions hold. In New Haven, where Yale’s holdings represent the majority of the city’s assessed value, the fiscal stakes are particularly high. The city totals $8.5B in tax-exempt property, about 60% of the city. University Growth & Housing Pressures Participants also mentioned that their cities’ anchor institutions enrollment and workforce numbers are still “growing” in recent decades. In Stamford, the “university and hospital are growing fast,” referring to the University of Connecticut-Stamford, which has one of the fastest growing doctoral programs in the country, and has seen a record high first-year enrollment up 50% since 2014. In Ann Arbor, the University of Michigan is “growing rapidly,” with a 7% enrollment growth in four years, totalling 53,000 students in a city of 122,000 people. In Bethlehem, Lehigh University is described as “a boom.” Since 2010, Lehigh’s student enrollment has increased by 30%, with the goal to expand to 6,000 students by 2030. As these institutions expand their student populations and workforce, they increase housing demand without proportionately increasing supply, rarely building new dorms or residential living spaces. Among all higher education, only 15.6% of students live on-campus (this is much higher among private 4-year institutions at 43.1%). Students nationwide must live off-campus, driving up competition and pricing out long-term residents in surrounding neighborhoods. These gentrification pressures are intensified by rental agencies that enter neighborhoods with the sole purpose of renting to students at higher prices where residents cannot compete. This has hollowed out historic neighborhoods surrounding universities and led to a “studentification” of housing, where existing homes are
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