Young animal entertaining graduate element (6)
I believe the answer is:
cobalt
'element' is the definition.
(cobalt is a kind of element)
'young animal entertaining graduate' is the wordplay.
'young animal' becomes 'colt' (I've seen this before).
'entertaining' indicates putting letters inside.
'graduate' becomes 'BA' (someone with a Bachelor of Arts degree).
'colt' placed around 'ba' is 'COBALT'.
(Other definitions for cobalt that I've seen before include "Magnetic-alloy element; a blue" , "Metal element" , "Metal giving its name to type of deep blue" , "Magnetic metal" , "kind of blue" .)