Policy simulation · UK higher education · 2027–28
Someone Else's Department
The University of Ashworth Metropolitan has failed its annual visa-compliance assessment. Over the next six turns you will sit at six different desks as the consequences move through the system — a compliance caseworker, a Vice-Chancellor, a regulator, a minister, the Treasury, and back to where it started. At each desk you act on that desk's incentives, seeing only what that desk can see. The question the article behind this scenario asks is the question none of the six has to answer: when a provider fails, who decides?
Ashworth Metropolitan is a fictional post-92 university. Its situation — heavy international-fee reliance, agent-recruitment problems, thin cash, and the position of sole higher-education provider for its region — reflects sector-wide conditions in 2026–27. The compliance rules modelled here follow the published UKVI Student sponsor guidance (Basic Compliance Assessment, the two compliance tracks, action plans, revocation, and teach-out). No choice tests individual competence; each is a coherent move from inside one role. There is no single scoreboard. There are three things happening at once that no one desk can see.
1. UK Visas & Immigration
2. Vice-Chancellor
3. Office for Students
4. DfE minister
5. HM Treasury
6. UKVI — the closure call
Ashworth Metropolitan · Compliance Failure Cascade
Turn 1 of 6
You are
Situation on arrival at this desk
What you can see from this desk
⬡ What this desk does not weigh
Your decision