European from Down Under losing a student (8)
I believe the answer is:
austrian
'european' is the definition.
(Austrian is an example)
'down under losing a student' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'a' could be 'an' and 'an' is found in the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
'from' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for austrian that I've seen before include "Nationality of citizen of Vienna" , "Person from Vienna, say" , "Eg, native of Vienna" , "Hitler's nationality pre-1925" , "European in an Asian rut" .)