Calls for reform – once muffled in American higher education – are becoming louder and more frequent.

Rising college costs, falling rates of degree attainment, questions about the quality of student learning, growing gaps in success rates between white students and students of color – all of these trends point to an increasingly accepted fact: Change is vital if we hope to have a postsecondary education system that meets our future needs.

Fortunately, change is under way. At institutions all over the nation, innovative concepts and programs are being tested and implemented. These efforts are still more the exception than the rule. They are disparate and often small-scale, and no single effort can claim to be “the answer.”

Still, because these efforts show promise, they merit attention – if only as a way to stimulate the ongoing conversation about higher-education reform.

This issue of “Lumina Foundation Focus” features four of these conversation starters, four provocative images that help compose higher education’s changing picture.