What your scenarios describe are students who are not ready / prepared to do as well as their peers in college.

You cannot resolve prior inequities by forcing students into college- they drop out at higher rates, with higher (unforgivable!) debts, and word of mouth of their experiences will continue to deter others from trying.

I personally witnessed this happen to friends I had made my freshman year at school.

The ACT in particular has a really low bar for anyone who does reasonably well in school- most state schools around here had a minimum score that certainly required no preparation to achieve.