Why did Clayboy have to learn Latin?

To get the scholarship to get into college he had to learn Latin. He was getting the scholarship. Once he got in he could switch to any other major but he had to win the scholarship to get in in the first place.

Once upon a time most universities stressed the classics. That meant that educated people, properly prepared for a university degree would enter higher education able to read, write, and speak either Latin, Greek, or both. All those sororities (from the Latin for sisters) and fraternities (from the Latin for brothers) do not have Greek names by accident.

Our schools have changed hugely in the last few decades.

To show how rough life is, they told him he had to learn Latin for the ministerial scholarship, which he did NOT get. At the end they arranged for him to have a DIFFERENT scholarship. He wasted all that time and effort acing learning a dead language for NOTHING! Joke's on him, poor kid!