Given some context (another top comment has some jokes from the Philogelos: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30838277 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3

Given some context (another top comment has some jokes from the Philogelos: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30838277 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30838277 ), I believe it actually means student. The jokes often reference their parents or classmates. It made the joke above make sense to me, once I realized that.