‘We got educated and exploited’: Nadia Sheriff’s $35,000 loan has only reduced to $32,800 after 20 years

‘I’ve paid way more than I ever borrowed’ … Nadia Sheriff, now 43 and a mother of two, is still paying off her debt under the axed student financial supplement scheme Photograph: Nadia Sheriff/Supplied

As a teenager in the 1990s, Nadia Sheriff remembers seeing posters plastered around her university campus.

“Don’t have enough food to eat?” they blared. “Can’t cover the basics?”