Students Spend, As Country Goes On Saving Spree

Practically everybody is saving more money than over before--except the luckless student. Despite the fact that the national savings rate doubled in 1951 to reach an all-time high of nearly 21 billion dollars, local bankers reported yesterday that undergraduates were as spendthrift as ever.

Granville H. Beever, treasurer of the Cambridge Savings Bank, said that he saw "no great increase" in student saving accounts, and added that "the incidence of student saving is not very high." He cited the high cost of living and a student's natural tendency to spend, as reasons for which Harvard fails to keep up with the national trend.

"Not if I can help it." Harry R. Andrews, treasurer of the Reliance Co-operative Bank, said when asked if he did business with undergraduates. Explaining that the bank's systematic saving plan, which requires specified deposits, is not suited to student life. Andrews admitted he "purposely discouraged them, after they get out of college they should to us" he advised.

To the Harvard Trust Company savings accounts are "essentially just a side-line" Vice-President Charles J. Sommer said yesterday. "We're fundamentally a commercial bank," he explained, "and our commercial deposits are four to five times as large as our savings accounts." Like other commercial banks, the Trust Company's savings department has shown no substantial increase. "We're not fortunate enough to participate," Andrews added ruefully.