HSA Seeking $150,000 For Bank, New Building

Harvard Student Agencies has begun a campaign to raise $150,000 primarily for the creation of a corporation bank to back new student businesses.

The appeal, directed to private businessmen and corporations, is emphasizing HSA's dual role in business education and student financial aid. HSA figures indicate that investments in student businesses provide more money for financial aid than investments in either scholarship or low interest loan funds.

The bank will be capitalized at $50,000 Twenty-five thousand dollars is allotted to a study of HSA itself and of the feasibility of establishing similar operations on other campuses. The Ford Foundation has indicated interest in providing additional funds for such a study.

Fifty thousand dollars is earmarked for a new building planned to house the entire HSA operation. The remaining $25,000 will be used for improvements in present facilities.

Intended to provide a capital reserve for HSA agencies, the proposed bank will enable students to acquire capital at interest rates and schedules more flexible than those of commercial banks. Money will be available both for the expansion of existing agencies and the creation of new ones.

The non-profit corporation has never had such a capital reserve. Established in 1957 on the receipts of an initial linen distribution program, it has grown to a current 22 agencies, but is still operating on a cash flow basis.

In the past, the corporation has had to borrow money from commercial banks on behalf of the various agencies.

Low Priority

The new building has low priority in the plans, HSA is presently housed in two offices, their original one at 4 Holyoke St. and a new office at 993 Massachusetts Ave. The site of the new building, in which all the agencies would be brought together, will be determined at the end of the summer.

An advisory committee to aid in the capital raising includes Neil McElroy '25, chairman of the Board of Overseers and chairman of the board of Proctor and Gamble Company, and David Rockefeller '36, past chairman of the Board of Overseers and President of the Chase Manhattan Bank.

Miles College

Dustin Burke '52, HSA board chairman, is particularly interested in the creation of student-operated businesses at Miles College, in Birmingham, Ala., where they would help to alleviate student aid fund shortage.

Charles W. Filson '66, president of HSA, pointed out that the development of the organization at Harvard depended in large part on the "wealthy strata of the community. It would have to be modified in a community where students didn't buy $25 rings."