Reason to support fine university type (4)
I believe the answer is:
prof
'university type' is the definition.
The definition suggests a singular noun which matches the answer.
'reason to support fine' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'fine' could be 'f' (abbreviation) and 'f' is found in the answer.
The remaining letters 'pro' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't see.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for prof that I've seen before include "Academic briefly" , "Top academic (informal)" , "head of dept at uni" , "High-ranking university academic (abbr)" , "Senior academic (colloq.)" .)