Struggle to study with care (7)
I believe the answer is:
contend
'struggle' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'study with care' is the wordplay.
'study' becomes 'con' (I've seen this before).
'with' says to put letters next to each other.
'care' becomes 'tend' (I've seen this before).
'con'+'tend'='CONTEND'
'to' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for contend that I've seen before include "Struggle (with someone)" , "Engage in a struggle" , "Struggle in rivalry" , "fight" , "Debate - contest - claim" .)