College, stretched, failed (7)
I believe the answer is:
cracked
'failed' is the definition.
Both the definition and answer are adjectives. Perhaps there's a link between them I don't understand?
'college stretched' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'college' could be 'c' and 'c' is present in the answer.
The remaining letters 'racked' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't see.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for cracked that I've seen before include "Having fissures" , "Fractured" , "Slangily eccentric - or broken" .)