Proceeded to swindle money ahead of university education (9)
I believe the answer is:
continued
'proceeded' is the definition.
('continue' can be a synonym of 'proceed')
'to swindle money ahead of university education' is the wordplay.
'to swindle' becomes 'con' ('con' can be a synonym of 'swindle').
'money' becomes 'tin' (I've seen this before**).
'ahead of' says to put letters next to each other (I've seen this in other clues).
'university' becomes 'u'.
'education' becomes 'ed' (abbreviation - e.g. sex ed).
'con'+'tin'+'u'+'ed'='CONTINUED'
(Other definitions for continued that I've seen before include "Didn't stop -- 9 across (anag)" , "Unnoticed (anag.)" , "kept going" , "Persisted; resumed" , "Resumed; went on" .)