WASHINGTON — A college degree practically stamped Andres Aguirre’s ticket to the middle class. Yet at age 40, he’s still paying the price of admission.

After a decade of repayments, Aguirre still diverts $512 a month to loans and owes $20,000.

The expense requires his family to rent an apartment in Campbell, Calif., because buying a home in a decent school district would cost too much. His daughter has excelled in high school, but Aguirre has urged her to attend community college to avoid the debt that got him.

America’s student debt, now at $1.2 trillion, has bred a disturbing phenomenon: School loans that span generations. Weighed down by their own loans, many parents lack the means to fund their children’s educations.

Data analyzed exclusively by The Associated Press, along with surveys about families and rising student debt loads, show that:

School loans increasingly belong to Americans over 40. This group accounts for 35 percent of education debt, up from 25 percent in 2004.

Generation X adults — those 35 to 50 — owe about as much as people fresh out of college do.

Gen-X parents who carry student debt and have teenage children have struggled to save for their children’s educations. The average they have in college savings plans is just $4,000, compared with a $20,000 average for teenagers’ parents who aren’t still repaying their own school loans, Pew found.

Student debt is surpassing groceries as a primary expense, with the gap widening most for younger families. The average college-educated head of household under 40 owes $404 a month in student debt payments.

The debt cycle reflects a rush to pursue college as a path to middle class security. Roughly 25 years ago, federal policies began encouraging borrowing on a mass scale to cover soaring college costs. Policymakers figured borrowers could afford the debt because college degrees would all but guarantee comfortable incomes. The reality played out somewhat differently.

Twists and turns

Nathan Anderson received his first student loan in 1991. His time at Johns Hopkins University overlapped with the start of the lending boom: The government was raising borrowing limits, introducing unsubsidized Stafford loans and incentivizing private lenders.

Majoring in psychology, Anderson hoped to become a child psychologist. But after suffering a shoulder injury while playing soccer, he found relief only from an acupuncturist. The treatment led him to study Chinese medicine and become a licensed acupuncturist himself in 2004. He had already racked up $45,000 in college debt; acupuncture school required more.

Now 42 with a blended family of five, he runs an acupuncture clinic in Tucson, Ariz., with his wife, Julie, also an acupuncturist. Combined, their monthly student loan bills approach $1,700.

No choice but debt

Part of the problem is that job opportunities can require workers to return to school and borrow at a time when savings traditionally became a priority. In Kansas, the Bigler family lives in the remote town of Ashland as part of a government-backed program to forgive the debt for the father, Jonathan, 54, who in a mid-career switch became a physician assistant. Including the college debts for their three daughters, ages 22 to 27, the Biglers pay $2,531 each month for student debts. The family is to be debt-free when Jonathan turns 72.