No, the level of education has nothing to do with it. Молодца is used equally frequently by university professors as it is by farmers. Any rate, since this is basically a bit of a word play, people use it only jokingly nowadays, but there's absolutely no social stigma or anything like that attached to it - you're absolutely safe to use молодца as a language learner. In fact, it will make your Russian sound so much more natural and idiomatic.Originally Posted by Milanya
His illiterateness is marked here not by the use of "молодца", but "ай да молодца" (I'd only say "ай молодца"), "мальчонка" and to a greater degree by "небось".This is an example of usage Mолодца spoken by an illiterate sailor.
Это быстрое понимание привело Лучкина в восхищение, и он воскликнул:
- Ай да молодца, Максимка! Все понимаешь... А теперь валим, мальчонка,
обедать... Небось, есть хочешь?
Молодица fell out of use a very long time ago. Besides, молодица and молодца aren't even related: молодца (at-a-girl!) is a funny play on молодец (at-a-boy!) and молодица is the old feminine form of an equally old word молодец, which means something johncleesianly different.Although there is a Russian word "молодица", but it has a completely different meaning. It means "young married woman."