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Mother-of-four Nerrin Bailey has performed the daily triple shift of parenting, work and study for the past four years.

That backbreaking effort will pay off when she graduates with a Bachelor of Business from Queensland University of Technology this year. That achievement has also been possible thanks to QUT's Learning Potential Fund which provided her with financial support.

Nerrin, of Mango Hill, just north of Brisbane, has used the power of education to secure a future for her son, 16, and daughters 11, 9 and 7.

On International Women's Day on Monday (March 8) she will quietly reflect on how far she has come.

"Whether I am just inspiring my three girls to become the greatest women they can be, or women I don't know, I think my greatest aspiration is to become a woman whose life, experiences and achievements will inspire women who are strangers," she said.

Nerrin's struggle to achieve began as a school leaver who went to university but dropped out because of lack of support, who married young, had a baby at age 22, and financially supported her first husband while he studied.

After her marriage broke down she tried to complete her business degree at another university but study combined with life as a single mother was too hard.

"It was too much to cope with at once,'' she said.

She later reconnected with, and married, her childhood sweetheart, from their home town of Atherton, in far north Queensland.

After her daughters arrived, she worked part-time at jobs which included making plaster moulds "of pregnant women's bellies".

But when her husband was diagnosed with a medical condition that limited his employment chances, Nerrin returned to study to better provide for her family.

She said she gained a Diploma in Business from Redcliffe TAFE, with the aim of gaining office work, but then decided to go back to university.

"My husband as a home dad was doing a brilliant job,'' she said.

But enrolment in a business degree at QUT, led to the "fright" of her life.

"I realized I couldn't afford the travel, the textbooks," Nerrin said. "I had to take food and clothes off my kids to pay for my books - or if I wasn't going to buy books I had to spend time in the library away from my kids.''

After contacting the QUT counselling office in distress, Nerrin successfully applied for a Commonwealth Learning Scholarship of about $1000 a semester and gained support from QUT in the form of book vouchers, a computer with internet access and a Learning Potential Fund Bursary of $500 a semester.

"I was numb,'' she said. "I felt I had been in a situation where everywhere I looked before there was no support. "Now there were people everywhere who wanted to help me. I had never experienced that before in my life.''

She is set to graduate in July and hopes to gain work as an accountant.

Nerrin said the support she had received had changed the way she saw herself.

"I also see changes in my children and what they perceive as possible for themselves," she said.

•The Learning Potential Fund is one of QUT's key fundraising priorities. It provides a permanent, stable source of income for scholarships and bursaries for students in financial need. Currently, a scholarship is valued at $2,500 and a bursary is valued at $1,000.