In this article we focus on answering the question "Is there equal access to different types of higher education institutions (HEIs) for ethnic minority (EM) students in Yunnan Province (China), and what explanation might be found for any differences?" In order to answer this question, we rely on the education attainment theory, and a sample of 600 EM students provides the data for the analysis. The analysis shows that these students have differing preferences for private, key, public, or vocational universities. It is also demonstrated that this might be influenced by the occupation and education of the parents, family income, etc. Further, using 10 possible determinants in a multinomial logistic regression analysis, we determined whether it is possible to predict with greater accuracy the educational attainment of EM students and found that the entrance exam score is the best predictor. (Contains 9 tables.)