Economic Sustainability and SDG Engagement in Saudi Higher Education: Public-Data Evidence on Quality-of-Life Alignment Under Vision 2030

This study examines the economic and institutional dimensions of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) engagement in Saudi higher education under Vision 2030, with particular attention to whether participation in SDG-oriented benchmarking can be interpreted as evidence of quality-of-life outcomes. The primary empirical focus is the publicly reported expansion of Saudi higher education institutions (HEIs) participating in the Times Higher Education Impact Rankings between 2019 and 2024 and the breadth of SDGs addressed. Published environmental and green-research indicators for 12 universities are used only as contextual evidence and are explicitly identified as previously published findings, not as new findings of this study. The six-year participation series is summarized descriptively and with a segmented linear trend model; the model is not interpreted causally. The evidence indicates that participation increased from 3 HEIs in 2019 to 32 in 2024 and reported SDG coverage expanded from 7 to 16 goals. These changes demonstrate wider institutional engagement with SDG reporting, but do not establish improvements in actual well-being, employment, health, or environmental outcomes. The paper’s contribution is an evidence-boundary framework for distinguishing economic and environmental performance indicators, research-capability measures, and SDG participation, alongside recommendations for more standardized, outcome-oriented public reporting. These relationships are organized within the Green–Future–Quality-of-Life Alignment Model (GFQAM), which is used as a conceptual framework rather than a causal model.