In this article, Brian Rosenberg observes that innumerable things have changed inside and outside academia since 1944, but the essential conservatism of the academy has not. When it comes to examining their own practices and assumptions, colleges and universities tend to be highly resistant to change and powerfully attached to whatever their current way of doing things happens to be. There is little about the governance structure or reward system in higher education that encourages substantial change. The careers of presidents and provosts are briefer, more tenuous, and more stressful than (maybe) ever before. Higher education is also inclined to be inward rather than outward looking: that is, to focus on the priorities and preferences of internal audiences--administrators, faculty members, trustees--rather than external audiences like prospective students and their families. Herein, Rosenberg highlights four major challenges to the current model of liberal education, most of which are addressed at least briefly in one or more of the articles in this issue of "Liberal Education": (1) Cost; (2) Inequality of access; (3) The flight from the humanities; and (4) The flight to cities.