A stinker finally strove to aspire to ascend in scholarly life (8)
I believe the answer is:
academia
'scholarly life' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'a stinker finally strove to aspire to ascend' is the wordplay.
'stinker' becomes 'cad' (both can mean a dishonourable man).
'finally' indicates one should take the final letters.
'to aspire' becomes 'aim' (synonyms).
'to ascend' says the letters should be written backwards (I've seen 'ascending' mean this).
The final letter of 'strove' is 'e'.
'aim' written backwards gives 'mia'.
'a'+'cad'+'e'+'mia'='ACADEMIA'
'in' is the link.
(Other definitions for academia that I've seen before include "Universities etc." , "scholarly life" , "scholastic life" , "university types" , "teaching community" .)