Bill with top grade intended going up in scholarly world (8)
I believe the answer is:
academia
'scholarly world' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'bill with top grade intended going up' is the wordplay.
'bill' becomes 'ac'.
'with' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'top grade' becomes 'a'.
'intended' becomes 'aimed' (aiming is a kind of intending).
'going up' is a reversal indicator.
'aimed' back-to-front is 'demia'.
'ac'+'a'+'demia'='ACADEMIA'
'in' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for academia that I've seen before include "Universities etc." , "scholastic world" , "Scholarly world" , "university life" , "The world of teaching" .)