GAINESVILLE, Ga. - In Appalachian Georgia, generations of young people have received the same life advice: Get married. Get a job at the mill. Settle down into a stable - if slow paced - country life insulated from big city troubles.

That blueprint too rarely includes going on to college or even finishing high school, according to Shirley Davis. She's among a group of regional educators worried that cultural suspicions of college may be hobbling students at a time when advancing technology makes the region's low-skill factory jobs obsolete.