Well-known institutions of higher learning include Yunnan University, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Yunnan Normal University, Southwest Forestry University, Yunnan University for Nationalities, Kunming Medical University, Yunnan Agricultural University and Yunnan University of Finance and Economics.

Yunnan University, located in Kunming, Yunnan Province, is one of the earliest comprehensive universities in western China. It is one of the first batch of 42 world-class universities in China and a national key university directly under the Ministry of Education and jointly established by the Ministry of Education and Yunnan Province. It ranks among the national "double first-class", "2 1 1 project", "one province and one school", the comprehensive strength improvement project of universities in the central and western regions, and the basic capacity building project of universities in the central and western regions. He has been selected as the winner of the national "11plan", the education and training plan for outstanding legal talents, the education and training plan for outstanding engineers, the national postgraduate plan for building a high-level university, and the scholarship for overseas students from China government. He is a member of the "one province, one school" national key construction university (Z 14) alliance in the central and western regions, the leading unit of the South Asia Southeast Asia University Alliance, and has graduate students.

Kunming University of Science and Technology is a comprehensive provincial-level key university with work as the center, integration of science and engineering and coordinated development of multiple disciplines. It is a university jointly established by the National Bureau of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense and the People's Government of Yunnan Province, and is a national "Basic Capacity Building Project for Universities in the Midwest". It has been selected into the National Key Discipline Project to build universities, the National Public Graduate Program to build high-level universities, the Education and Training Program for Outstanding Engineers of the Ministry of Education, the China Government Scholarship Receiving Institution for Foreign Students in China, the National College Students' Innovation Experiment Program, the National College Students' Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training Program, the first batch of "New Engineering" research and practice projects of the Ministry of Education, and the first batch of demonstration universities in China to deepen the reform of innovation and entrepreneurship education. The first batch of universities' scientific and technological achievements transformation and technology transfer bases, China's "Hundred Schools Project", one of the first six universities selected as the national innovative talents training demonstration base, one of the two universities that established the national international technology transfer center, and a member of CDIO Engineering Education Alliance.