Council Report Proposes $80,000 Student Relief From N.Y.A. Funds

An $80,000 Student Work Program for Harvard, to be financed by National Youth Administration Funds, was recommended to the University authorities in a Student Council report made public last night.

The report, compiled by Council Chairman Langdon P. Marvin, Jr. '41 and John C. Robbins, Jr. '42 and passed unanimously by the Council, stated that out of a total of 2,130 applicants for student employment last year, only a little more than half were given jobs, and that NYA aid would have done much to make up this disparity.

98% of Colleges Use NYA

Pointing out that 98% of American universities and colleges have such aid at present, it declared that the program would especially benefit commuters and graduate students, ineligible for T.S.E. and Student Employment aid at present.

In normal years, it was affirmed, 50 to 100 students are forced to leave college because they cannot make ends meet financially. Not only these exceptional cases would be benefited by NYA; to the typical hard-pressed student, "Eli Harvard '44," it would be "the marginal fund which makes his year a success instead of a drudgery."

NYA information pamphlets say that the work provided is designed to help the student continue "properly" his education. Thus it might enable Eli to "go home at Christmas time or to buy much-needed new clothes." If Eli is a commuter, the extra money might enable him to "join Dudley Hall (where he can meet fellow students and relax) instead of having to eat his lunch out of a paper bag in Boyiston Reading Room."

Among the advantages urged was the fact that the program would provide a "much better type of job for students." They would work at vocational and educational projects such as assisting in libraries, laboratories, and museums, rather than "waiting on tables in Boston hotels and night clubs, selling shoes, etc."

Jobs for 600 Students

Jobs for 10% of the University's enrollment, or about 600 students, would be made available under the proposed program, and according to the report many of these men could be set to work on useful projects which the University has recently had to drop because of a contraction of funds.

Administration would involve the same problems generally as does the T.S.E., it was asserted, and therefore both programs could be managed from the present T.S.E, office. Expense could be reduced to a minimum by employing the administrative assistants themselves on NYA funds, which was done successfully at Tufts College.

The charge that political strings woud be attached to the plan was poohpoohed, since College not national officials would administer the program and select both students and jobs.