I'm firmly in the camp of there being a new class to underlay Scholar with the respective guild either in one of the starting cities or one of the other, expanded, settlements around Eorzea.

I did wonder about the 8-slot job crystal window. My take that the Beta will not have the 9th job ready and the 9th slot will be added in when SCH or SMN is attainable. Though that seems a little tenuous. Maybe when the chest was designed, only 8 jobs were confirmed and the whole SCH thing is a relatively recent addition.