High-level vocational education is the core of the development of vocational education modernization system. Based on five main indicators which include sixteen secondary indicators of school running level and five core indicators of the “Double High-level Project”, an analysis was made to investigate the development process and the challenges that the higher vocational education in the western ethnic regions would face. We found that higher vocational education in the western ethnic regions had already made outstanding achievements in standardization construction. The gap between the regions has narrowed and the policy goals of the National Education Reform and Development Plan have been achieved. However, the task of building high-level higher vocational education is still arduous, as it also faces challenges such as regional imbalance, insufficient type attributes and insufficient capacity building. To solve the above problems and construct high-level higher vocational education in ethnic regions, it is necessary to reinforce the foundation through top-level design and policy supply, to highlight the “ethnic nature” through differentiated strategies and characteristic development. Also, it’s important to catch up and build up a modern governance system by seizing opportunities to improve capacity-building in order to improve governance efficiency in the future development.