Half of Freshmen Unprepared

And we're not talking about a lack of extra long twin sheets. According to the New York Times:

Only about half of this year's high school graduates have the reading skills they need to succeed in college, and even fewer are prepared for college-level science and math courses, according to a yearly report from ACT, which produces one of the nation's leading college admissions tests.
The report, based on scores of the 2005 high school graduates who took the exam, some 1.2 million students in all, also found that fewer than one in four met the college-readiness benchmarks in all four subjects tested: reading comprehension, English, math and science.

You can see what Bill Gates means when he says America's high schools are obsolete and are ruining the lives of millions of young Americans every day.