Accountant trained to rise in scholastic life (8)
I believe the answer is:
academia
'scholastic life' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'accountant trained to rise' is the wordplay.
'accountant' becomes 'ac'.
'trained' becomes 'aimed' ('aim' can be a synonym of 'train').
'to' becomes 'a' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'rise' says the letters should be written in reverse.
'aimed'+'a'='aimeda'
'aimeda' written backwards gives 'ademia'.
'ac'+'ademia'='ACADEMIA'
'in' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for academia that I've seen before include "university circles" , "Scholarly world" , "Teaching environment" , "university types" , "university life" .)