Langston Hughes and my dilemma

I am reading “The Big Sea” written by Mr. Hughes and published when he was 38 years old in 1940. I am now on page 204. I am a very slow reader.

Here is my dilemma:
Mr. Hughes went to Columbia University in New York City for one semester. He writes a letter to his father:

So I wrote him and told him I was going to quit college and go to work on my own, and that he needn’t send me any more money. He didn’t. He didn’t ever write again. Pg. 85

Mr. Hughes went traveling and upon his return to America, he writes on pg. 201:

Ten months before, I had got to Paris with seven dollars, I had been in France, Italy, and Spain. And after the Grand Tour of the Mediterranean, I came home with a quarter, so my first European trip cost me exactly six dollars and seventy five cents!

Mr. Hughes wanted to attend Howard University upon his return to America. Irregardless of the fact he had a relative who was a Congressman, John M. Langston who was later to become the first dean of the Howard University Law School, he could not get a scholarship to attend Howard.

I wanted to study sociology and history and psychology…I spoke with Dean Kelly Miller about the possibility of trying a scholarship at Howard…I spoke with Dr. Alan Locke, who said my poems were about to appear in the New Negro issue of the Survey Graphic…But he didn’t have any scholarship up his sleeve, either. Pg. 204.

The inability of Mr. Hughes to get a scholarship to go to Howard University is of great curious to me. I am baffled! It does not make sense. As I continue reading his autobiography, I am hoping Mr. Hughes has better luck regarding his educational ambitions. At this time, I am forcing myself to take the position, “Everything happens for the best”.
As always,
BB