In Pennsylvania from the Post-Gazette: "In a report released last week, the department found that one-third of them -- more than 20,000 high school graduates -- needed to take one or more remedial courses in college in core academic subjects, mainly math and English, "so they could catch up to their college-level peers."

Um... if it's 1/3 of the general population, then it sounds like they're "peers" of their own, statistically speaking. I would suggest that such language is necessary to put the onus on the students: *they* have fallen behind. However, it could be stated that 1/3 of graduates have not been adequately prepared for college-level courses. Granted, that's wrong in the other direction: being prepared is not a passive process.