I wholeheartedly agree with Peter Cipolloso’s view (March 13) that there should be no student loan bailout.

Before it was reined in, the student loan program of the 1970s and 1980s reached a stratospheric default rate of 22.4% in 1992, according to the Federal Student Aid office of the U.S. Department of Education. The default rate is now 10.1%, according to the recent “Official Cohort Default Rates for Schools” from the Office of Federal Student Aid. The total outstanding student loan debt is now at $1.56 trillion, as reported in a Feb. 3, 2020 article in Forbes magazine.

I agree with his statement that only those who have prospects of remunerative careers should qualify for student loans. I know two people — a retired doctor and the daughter of a friend, who is now a pharmacist — who paid or will have paid off their loans in six or seven years. Those are sensible loan situations.

I read recently of a Bates College student who was lamenting how unfair it was to be burdened with her student loans. My question: what is that student doing at a school with yearly tuition and fees of $55,683?

Finally, Cipolloso’s suggestion for an “overhaul” of the student loan was anticipated by the Trump administration, which includes restrictions on some loans, ending others and ending some loan forgiveness programs in the administration’s proposed fiscal year 2021 budget

It is time to fix this out-of-control program.

Bob Casimiro, Bridgton