Student Government and UK Dining Services should be commended for hosting a forum last week to address the fledgling meal plan. But it is unfortunate that they cannot make changes to the plan during the school year.

We would like to take time and remind SG and Dining Services that they are here to serve the students. This forum is a good start and they need to continue implementing change with the meal plan.

“We are here to help students make that change and make a change that we’re all wanting,” said David Puthoff, SG’s Campus Life Advisory Board director, in a Kernel article Tuesday.

This change he speaks of should include taking away the ridiculous weekly limit on meal swipes for next year. The old method of assigning dollar amounts to meal plans and deducting from that lump sum was a reasonable method, and there is no reason why Dining Services should not revert back to this. At least that way meal money carries over for the entire semester. It’s always better to have too much at the end than to go hungry during midterms because you have used up your swipes for the week.

Another issue raised during the forum was about flex dollars. It seems logical that flex dollars should carry over from one semester to the next, just like the Plus Account. The meal plan should too, but we may be getting too far ahead of ourselves. These ideas seem simple enough, and Dining Services should consider putting them into practice.

For starters, Dining Services needs to listen to those who provide its funds. Forcing students who live on campus to buy a meal plan is already asinine. And putting these constraints on the meal plan just exacerbates a bad situation.

“We’re not trying to attack the meal plan. We’re trying to improve it,” Puthoff said.

Make no mistake, the meal plan needs a massive overhaul. It probably will not happen all in one semester, but if enough students make their voices heard, change will become a reality, and that is all we can hope for at this point.

The library forum earlier this semester enacted a positive change. We hope this meal plan forum can enact a similar change because UK students deserve better.