The majority of students are leaving high school without the reading and writing skills needed to succeed in college and a career. Many of the more than 700,000 students who leave U.S. high schools each year without a diploma have low literacy skills. In America today, one in five students fails to graduate from high school on time. The consequences for the individuals and the costs to the nation are staggering in terms of lost wages and earnings over a lifetime, estimated at about $335 billion per year. For those students who earn a diploma, an increasing number must take remedial coursework upon entering college, without promising results: students who enroll in a remedial reading course are less likely to eventually earn a degree or certificate. [Contains endnotes. For "Adolescent Literacy. Fact Sheet" (2011), see ED537560.]