Educated learner's initially expelled, with poor grade repeated (8)
I believe the answer is:
iterated
'repeated' is the definition.
('iterate' can be a synonym of 'repeat')
'educated learner's initially expelled with poor grade' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
'educated' could be 'ed' (I've seen this in other clues) and 'ed' is located in the answer.
'poor grade' could be 'e' (traditionally low school grade) and 'e' is present in the answer.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for iterated that I've seen before include "Repeated or stated repeatedly" , "Said or did again" , "given repeat" , "Done over" , "Kept repeating" .)