Students take First Lady to be equal (5)
I believe the answer is:
level
'be equal' is the definition.
(I've seen this in another clue)
'students take first lady' is the wordplay.
'students' becomes 'LL' (two abbreviations for learner).
'take' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'first lady' becomes 'eve' (Biblical first woman).
'll' placed around 'eve' is 'LEVEL'.
'to' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for level that I've seen before include "Palindromic tier?" , "Storey - stage" , "Regular" , "Horizontal plane - a palindrome" , "Flush" .)