How can MIT’s Undergraduate Association be more responsive to more students’ needs and voices?

In Fall 2025, realtalk@MIT supported the UA’s participatory budgeting cycle, providing bottom-up sensemaking by clustering PB suggestions, and spotlighting community voices in conversation about what to do with the funds.

Participatory budgeting (PB) is a process by which citizens determine how portions of the budget of a governing body is spent on the community. Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, and New York City all have Participatory Budgeting programs – now, realtalk@MIT is working with MIT UA to collectively decide on how to spend $50,000 in their budget. This process aimed to empower students to contribute ideas, vote on proposals, and oversee the implementation of winning projects.

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The Questions We Asked

What could make your student experience better?
What’s not working well on campus?
What kind of support does your student group or community need more of?

The Answers We Received

Conversations were a great way to elicit ideas and develop ideas, rather than only those submitted virtually and via text.
Going out to meet students where they are (walking across campus, during lunch, etc.) was a great way to involve more diverse student voices.
Visualizing clusters of needs made the review process less overwhelming and made areas of student need more visible.

Our Partners

The MIT UA (Undergraduate Association)
MIT SOLE (Student Organizations, Leadership, and Engagement)

Miguel Buitrago, Undergraduate Association’s Public Affairs Committee

JS Needed

“I think PB would be a way to like, show people, like, hey, here there's money. You have ideas, you like. Any person likes to complain. Yes, let's make it happen. Let's make your ideas happen. You have agency over what can happen.”

Next Steps

Over 100 ideas were submitted and 337 people voted on a refined list of 20 projects. The winners for this year are: free menstrual products, stud arcade, hammocks on campus, walking pads, mocha-making station, bike rack, more free groceries, and the fresh produce program. The UA will work to implement these ideas on campus in Spring 2026!

Get Involved

Check out our opportunities, fill out the interest form to pitch your own project, or email realtalk@mit.edu with questions! We would love to hear from you.