High school project idea · Law, Policy & Society
Trace where public money comes from, where it goes, and what every choice leaves unfunded.
Analyze a real local budget and explain priorities, tradeoffs, constraints, and unanswered questions in language residents can use.
Why this project matters
Analyze a real local budget and explain priorities, tradeoffs, constraints, and unanswered questions in language residents can use. This project feels different from a school assignment because the student serves students and community members trying to understand local government spending, creates something visible, tests it honestly, responds to feedback, and explains the decisions behind the final result.
What you will create
Use these deliverables as milestones for Follow the Money in a Public Budget. Adapt the details to your interests, available time, and real-world opportunities.
Research revenue sources, restricted funds, recurring costs, capital spending, reserves, debt, per-person comparisons, tradeoffs, and uncertainty. Document the needs, constraints, credible sources, and perspectives of students and community members trying to understand local government spending.
Turn the evidence into a focused plan for the public budget decoder and priority analysis, including success criteria, ethical boundaries, scope, and a realistic path to completion.
Create the first complete version of the public budget decoder and priority analysis. Include a budget source ledger, revenue and spending map, trend analysis, priority findings, plain-language explainer, resident questions, and public brief.
ask users to answer realistic budget questions with the guide and have a knowledgeable reviewer challenge assumptions and classifications Record what happened, what failed, what users or reviewers said, and which changes you made.
Publish the final public budget decoder and priority analysis with a portfolio-ready case study showing the challenge, evidence, process, revisions, results, limits, and next version.
Make the work stronger
For Follow the Money in a Public Budget, use these checkpoints to protect the quality of the work without turning the project into a performance for admissions.
Skills you can build
College application value
Can demonstrate initiative, curiosity, reflection, and growth through the student’s choices, response to setbacks, work with students and community members trying to understand local government spending, and development of Budget Analysis, Public Finance, and Civic Communication.
The goal of Follow the Money in a Public Budget is not to manufacture an impressive activity. Do real work, keep evidence of the process, and reflect honestly on what changed.
Related college majors
Use Follow the Money in a Public Budget as a clue, then open a related major guide to compare coursework, career directions, reality checks, and other ways to test the field.
Learn how organizations turn messy activity into trustworthy financial information that people can actually use.
Study how people and institutions make choices under constraints, then test those explanations with models and data.
Learn how public organizations turn policy into services people experience.
Follow the Money in a Public Budget is an original Compass educational starting point designed around real work, visible evidence, feedback, and reflection. It is not an admissions guarantee.