Males collecting English degrees (6)
I believe the answer is:
stages
'degrees' is the definition.
('stage' can be a synonym of 'degree')
'males collecting english' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'english' could be 'e' (abbreviation) and 'e' is found within the answer.
The remaining letters 'stags' 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 stages that I've seen before include "legs" , "Sagest kind of play venues" , "Positions or points in a process" , "Platforms for performances" , "Fixes" .)