WACO — Dawn Humphrey whipped into the driveway of her pink brick home just before sunset. She was late, and the spaghetti dinner her husband had prepared was getting cold.

An empty bottle of Dr Pepper rested in the cup holder — a time stamp for her more than two-hour commute from North Texas.

After nearly a decade making the roughly 200-mile, twice-weekly trek from her Waco home to her job as a title production manager and escrow officer in Irving and back, she's used to the humdrum of commuting. The rest of the workweek, she crashes on a cot at her mom's Irving townhouse.

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The arrangement isn't ideal. But with a nearly $800 per month student loan payment, Dawn says it's the cheapest option to clear the more than $74,000 in college debt she and her husband owe and be able to retire in 20 years.

"We were buying into our dream," Dawn said.

The clincher: She never graduated.

"Every month, when I'm making that payment, I look up at the wall, wishing I had that sheepskin. I feel incomplete," she said.

Dawn Humphrey is greeted by her husband, Jeffery Humphrey, who takes her things, as she arrives at her home in Waco after driving the more than 200-mile round trip commute from her Irving office. (Rose Baca / Staff Photographer)

'It's like fight club'

Earlier this year, The Dallas Morning News issued a call for Texans to share their stories of college debt and received 46 responses. Some wanted to be anonymous while others, with debt totaling six figures, backed out, citing embarrassment and fear of criticism.

"It's like fight club — everybody's in it, but nobody talks about it," said Jeffery Humphrey, Dawn's third husband, who also has student loans.

For many Americans, the price of a college diploma is often clouded by tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt that follows them long after graduation. And the cloud is growing. In June, it topped more than $1.4 trillion, according to the Federal Reserve.

"It's not the case that everyone has unmanageable student debt," said Jennifer Wang, director of the Washington, D.C., office for the Institute for College Access & Success — a nonprofit that works to make higher education more affordable. "But the levels are rising."

In Texas, more than half of 2015 bachelor degree recipients graduated with college debt, according to the institute's Project on Student Debt. Texas graduates overall leave college with an average of more than $27,000 in student loans.

Wang said the cost of college is more than tuition and fees. When choosing a school, she said, students and parents should consider other expenses such as cost of living, transportation and books — items that are often excluded from a college's price tag.

Dawn and Jeffery Humphrey relax with their dog at their Waco home. (Rose Baca / Staff Photographer)

Chasing a degree

Dawn calls the debt her "quiet reality."

A middle-aged woman, Dawn has a left lazy eye she tries to conceal. She speaks three languages (English, German and Spanish) and has jet black hair she dyes from a box. Her nails are trimmed and unpolished because she can't afford to have them done.

At home in Waco behind a glass cabinet is her community college diploma, graduation tassel and cords, honors medals and a plaque naming her North Lake College's student leader of the year.

She's spent a lifetime chasing a college degree and feels like she missed. And now, she's in debt for it.

"I've always wanted to go to college. I knew that was the only way I could break free of my familial low socioeconomic status," said Dawn, whose father was in the military and spent her childhood moving the family from place to place, including overseas. "I knew that was the only way I could even try and just grasp the next rung of middle class."

Dawn, reheating spaghetti sauce before dinner, calls student loan debt her "quiet reality." (Rose Baca / Staff Photographer)

A nontraditional student, she attended community college in her 30s after getting pregnant at 15. Later, she transferred to Southern Methodist University on an academic scholarship after four kids and two divorces. She took out student loans for her and her kids to live off while she pursued a double major — psychology and anthropology.

She wanted to be a forensic anthropologist. Or "Wonder Woman and help fight for justice," as she put it.

She was looking into graduate schools when a brain aneurysm ruptured the summer before her senior year. Three weeks later, she had a stroke. She had to relearn to walk, talk and tie her shoes. At 37, she had to use a walker and a cane.

"It made me very angry at life, and I was not going to just lie down and take that," she said.

Unable to work and pay her bills, she was evicted from her rent house in Plano and had to medically withdraw from school — about 30 hours shy of graduating.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, people are still required to repay their student loans, even if they did not complete their education.

"Everything I worked so hard for ... everything was gone in a minute," she said.

1 / 6Dawn (right) spends part of the workweek at the Irving home of her mother, Caroline McGinley. (Rose Baca / Staff Photographer) 2 / 6Dawn Humphrey leaves her work in Irving before driving back home to Waco in July. (Rose Baca / Staff Photographer) 3 / 6Dawn Humphrey exits Waco Drive along Interstate 35 in Waco on her way home from work in Irving.(Rose Baca / Staff Photographer) 4 / 6Dawn Humphrey drives into Waco on her way from her Irving office. (Rose Baca / Staff Photographer) 5 / 6Dawn Humphrey's dogs look out from the front door window at her home in Waco.(Rose Baca / Staff Photographer) 6 / 6Dawn Humphrey hauls her luggage into her mother's home in Irving in August. (Rose Baca / Staff Photographer)

Coffee and a kiss

Jeffery Humphrey, who Dawn met at community college and transferred with her to SMU, had a heart attack three months before her aneurysm ruptured. He also withdrew from school after falling behind in class while trying to heal his heart and care for her.

Several months after the aneurysm, Dawn began looking for work. To make a dent in her loans, she needed something more than the clerical work that earned her $12 per hour. She applied for dozens of jobs unsuccessfully in Waco, many telling her she was overqualified. A temp agency helped her land the Irving gig, where she earns $50,000 to $75,000 per year.

Jeffery, who will turn 60 this year and has dabbled in real estate and work as an electronics and maintenance technician, says he's too old to find reliable work after he was laid off a few years ago. He stays in the couple's aging 1929 bungalow with its original oak and pine floors that he bought at a tax sale in the '90s.

Their mortgage for their 900-square-foot space is $266 per month. He looks after their four cats and two dogs and tends to a garden of drift roses and day lilies while Dawn commutes to Irving and back.

When she comes home, he has dinner on the table.

The next morning, he sends her off before sunrise with coffee and a kiss.

Then it's back on the road again.

Elizabeth Rhyne, 28

Assistant director of residence life

Debt: $60,000

The news came quickly: She was being laid off.

After graduating four years ago from the University of Oklahoma with a master's degree in administrative leadership, the girl from a small Oklahoma town landed a job as a nonprofit fundraiser.

"Education was something that was very important to my parents, and I grew up knowing I was going to go to college," Elizabeth said.

Her parents didn't help her pay for college. Her dad manages a wholesale plumbing parts store and her mom worked in fundraising at a nonprofit. As valedictorian of her high school class, she had academic scholarships that covered most of her undergraduate tuition. She also worked as a residential adviser, at the on-campus pharmacy and as a teaching assistant.

In May, news that her job as a fundraiser at a national nonprofit in Leon County would end in a few weeks left her scurrying to find work. At the time, she and her husband were under contract to buy their first house.

But her options were limited. The mostly rural county sits between Houston and Dallas and isn't flush with jobs, particularly opportunities at nonprofits.

Elizabeth must work at a nonprofit for at least another seven years if she wants the government to consider wiping away the $60,000 she owes in federal loans as part of its 10-year public service loan forgiveness plan. And whether or not that will happen by the time she's 35 remains uncertain.

"My husband doesn't have student loan debt. He doesn't really understand what it's like to have it," she said. "It's something that's always there."

The couple has delayed having kids because of the cost of adding a baby to the mix.

Last month, she landed a job as assistant director of residence life at Navarro College in Corsicana, about an hour south of Dallas.

Now, she's living on a college campus again. And still paying her student loans.

Shari Hicks, 47

Commercial lender

Debt: $75,000

Shari Hicks will have her Lake Highlands home paid off before her student loans.

"It sucks," she said.

Six years ago, she graduated with her executive MBA from the University of Texas at Dallas — and $75,000 of debt.

Now her $1,300 student loan monthly payment is almost as much as her mortgage.

"If education is the key for us to have a better life, then the debt that comes along with education is crippling," she said.

Growing up, Shari's parents warned her not to take out student loans. She didn't have any as an undergraduate at the University of North Texas, where she pursued a bachelor's in public affairs. An academic scholarship and her parents covered the cost.

She was working for the city of Dallas as a speechwriter when she decided to return to school for a fast-track graduate degree in business while she worked full time. Now, she's a commercial lender at the bank with a six-figure salary.

When she enrolled in the 23-month executive MBA program, she didn't have the money for the tuition. She willingly took out loans to cover the cost.

"I think we all just assume that everyone has student loans. It's kind of like everybody assumes you have a mortgage or you pay rent," she said.

Shari is married and the mother of three kids; the oldest will be a senior in high school this year. Now, she and her husband wrestle with how to pay for their children's college. They've foregone family vacations, a new car and repairing their backyard fence to repay the loans and help save money. But there are no guarantees.

"There's just really no shortcut to paying off your student loans," she said.

Christine Haddad, 27

Office manager

Debt: $24,000

After Christine graduated with a degree in theater performance from Marymount Manhattan College in New York, her dad handed her a packet. Inside was the paperwork to repay the $24,000 in student loans she owed.

At the time, she worked a retail job and danced with a burlesque troupe.

She paid the minimum payment on her loans and figured she'd be done in five years. Her parents also pitched in and agreed to cover half the debt.

"But I never learned about interest and what interest was," she said.

She needed to make more money. So the South Dallas resident swapped her retail job for an office manager desk job. On the side, she moonlighted as a bartender and worked as a figure model a few times a month. She doesn't buy clothes. She doesn't travel.

She has anxiety about money — what she owes and how she's going to pay it back.

"I just can't stand having any kind of debt," she said.

Now, her balance is less than $1,000. She promised herself she'd have the loans paid off by her birthday in February.

Jennifer Steele, 35

First-grade teacher

Debt: $80,000

Jennifer knew when she started college she wouldn't get out of it debt-free.

She didn't land any scholarships and only qualified for a couple of small grants. A first-generation college graduate, she didn't know how much an undergraduate and graduate degree in early childhood education from Texas Christian University would cost her.

"I knew I was going to have debt," said Jennifer, a Fort Worth resident. "But this amount of debt? It's just been really hard."

Her parents took out a Parent PLUS loan, so on top of paying her own loans, she's also paying theirs. After more than a decade of paying, she's cut the approximately $80,000 she originally owed by more than half.

But with a more than $400 monthly student loan payment, she hasn't been able to save for a down payment on a house. For eight years, she lived with a roommate. She baby-sits most days of the week for extra cash.

If she could do things over, she wouldn't have gone to TCU, where undergraduate annual tuition and fees for this school year tallies $44,760.

"It's way too much debt," she said.

Jernard Griggs, 37

Teacher and basketball coach

Debt: $156,000

Jernard doesn't talk about his six-figure debt with anyone.

"In the black community, it's not talked about," said Jernard, a basketball coach and technology teacher in Dallas. "A lot of people in my culture, they already have the negative stigma that college costs a lot, which it does."

After bouncing around jobs with an associate degree, he didn't pursue a four-year diploma until his late 20s at Tarleton State in Stephenville, where he studied computer information systems. Later, he earned a master's degree in leadership and management and his teaching certification.

He relied on Pell Grants and student loans to cover his tuition, fees, books and living expenses.

Now, he's swallowed by $156,000 in student loans.

The debt has prevented him from buying a home. It was also an issue recently when he tried to buy a car.

"You have to weigh the pros and cons. Do I want to work a $10-$12 an hour job? Or do I want to make $50,000, which is decent, and possibly have $100,000 in debt? It's a tough decision," he said.

Christie Lynch, 48

Marketing manager

Debt: $80,000

Christie dropped out of college when she was 20 after a friend died.

A decade ago, at age 38, she went back. She had two kids. She was working full time, and her husband was in the midst of starting a software company. College also was more expensive.

Sometimes, she wishes she'd stayed in school in the 1980s.

"I am in debt for the next 20-plus years because I went and got a degree in 2007," she said. "It's a sad state of affairs."

She enrolled for online classes at the for-profit Westwood College, which was founded in Denver, and graduated with a degree in visual communications in 2010.

But it also left her saddled with roughly $80,000 in debt — double what she thought it would be when she began the program three years prior. She admits, however, that the degree also has doubled her salary at a company where she now works as a marketing manager.

"It's an investment in the future. But it's also a debt in the future. It's kind of a wash," she said.

Last year, the school closed following a settlement with the Colorado attorney general's office for misleading students on the full cost of attending the school, among other reasons.

Seven years after graduating, Christie is still paying off the debt. She's cut the balance down to more than $50,000.

In December, her daughter will graduate from the University of North Texas. Christie and her husband — already burdened with paying for her higher education — took out a Parent PLUS loan to help pay for their daughter's schooling.

"It's just more debt," she said.

Michael Deanda, 38

Banker

Debt: $40,000

Michael worked 30 to 40 hours as a bank teller while an undergraduate at Texas Tech University.

He didn't have scholarships, and his parents didn't help him pay for school.

But the job, he said, wasn't enough to cover tuition, fees, books and living expenses. What he couldn't pay himself, he subsidized with loans.

"I was uneducated when it came to student loans. I thought it was just money. You don't really think about paying it back," Michael, a banker, said. "You think, 'Oh hey, free money. Sign me up.'"

After paying his loans for about a decade, he now owes approximately $30,000.

He and his wife don't have money to travel, and it's difficult to begin saving for their oldest child's college fund. He'd like to put more into his 401(k). The couple delayed having their two children — a 7-year-old and a 11-month old — until they were in their 30s. They bought a house in a modest neighborhood.

"I know that sounds snooty," he said.

As a banker, he warns customers about the pitfalls of student loans. He advises students go to junior college first for their basic classes. He wishes he'd done the same, maybe then he wouldn't be driving a pickup.

"I tell people all the time, if I didn't have school loans, I'd be driving an Escalade."

Photo illustrations by Michael Hogue