Although few parts of Harvard were especially generous with scholarships and financial aid in the early years of the 20th century, HBS—with no endowment to speak of—was particularly ill-equipped to help its students.

At a 1910 meeting of the School's Visiting Committee, Dean Gay called the lack of student loan funds the "most immediate need" of the School.

Four members of the Committee, including J. P. Morgan, Jr., pulled out their wallets and passed hundred-dollar bills (and at least one fifty) under the conference room table to Gay. This cash infusion—which added up to $850, when all the bills were counted—subsequently served as the nucleus of the School's loan fund.