To notice the biggest improvement the new system has brought, you need to first finish your meal. Then, when you return your tray, have a look at the dishes in the trolley. Most of them are empty – putting a limit on what you can eat has made people reconsider their habit of taking excessive amounts of food. This has also led to food being available longer. Gone are the days when fries were reserved for the first 100 people.

Many students also feel that the quality of food has improved. Indeed, there are days with an excellent selection of dishes. However, it seems that Aramark now also serves more junk food, probably in hope of appealing to students' taste and selling more meals. And then there are still days on which one would prefer not eating at all: Vegetable patties, recycled goulash, fish with recycled sauce, hardly any side dishes, and no variety in the salad bar.

Other grievances are portion sizes and prices. Even though the student parliament has managed to bring prices down from the excessive levels charged at first, portion sizes and prices sometimes don't match. With some meals, getting them from off campus would be cheaper: Aramark recently charged 3.20 Euros for a sausage. A bistro in Vegesack offers a similar sausage with fries for 3 Euros. A hamburger with fries and drinks was about the same price as a comparable meal from a fast food outlet.

When I discussed these issues with Claudia Krüger, Aramark's manager on campus, she asked for patience. Apparently, for Aramark the shift from "all you can eat" to giving students decent meals for 12.66 Euros a day is not easy. This is surprising, considering that Aramark is an international company, but a review of the Facebook group "Boycott Aramark" revealed that other schools around the world have the same problems.

If Aramark and the university keep their promises to the USG, there will be more adjustments to the food system in March. But what will happen beyond that? The university leadership seems very reluctant about introducing flexible meal plans, but ultimately full flexibility is the only solution. Rather than a fee for room and board, Jacobs should simply charge students for rooms. Instead of getting a daily budget, students would be free to charge their cash card with as much money as they want. University subsidies could still be granted in the form of a percentage of money added to every recharge up to a certain amount.

Why would that be the only real solution? Currently, Aramark has a campus monopoly. Students have paid for their food in advance, so they are likely to eat even when quality, quantity and price don't match. If the money on the cash cards were refundable, students would gain the power to show Aramark their dissatisfaction by eating elsewhere.

The university opposes that plan because students with less financial means might stop eating to save money. While I believe that their concern is genuine, it is also ridiculous. At most universities in the world, students take care of themselves – "tomorrow's business leaders" should be trusted to do the same.