Pound as wage for academic (7)
I believe the answer is:
learned
'for academic' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'pound as' is the wordplay.
'pound' becomes 'l'.
'as' becomes 'earned' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'l'+'earned'='LEARNED'
'wage' is the link.
I am not very happy about this link. It may be part of another bit of the clue.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for learned that I've seen before include "Discovered - erudite" , "Well educated and knowledgeable" , "Acquired information, being well educated" , "Studied" , "Knowledgeable - scholarly" .)