Objective To analyze the current situation of learning motivation of medical aesthetics students in higher vocational colleges. Methods From March to May 2024, 638 medical aesthetics students from 4 higher vocational colleges in Hunan Province were selected and investigated by online distribution of questionnaires, such as learning motivation scale and so on. Results The learning motivation level of 638 medical aesthetics students in the six dimensions from high to low is material pursuit, social orientation, knowledge and enterprising, personal achievement, small group orientation, fear of failure. Univariate analysis showed that there were differences in the learning motivation of medical aesthetics students in four aspects, namely, grade, major selection intention, student source category and employment intention (P <0.05), while in addition to the personal achievement dimension, the learning motivation of the six dimensions of freshmen was higher than that of the other two grades, the junior students had the lowest level of fear of failure learning motivation, and the students in the three grades had the highest scores in the dimension of material pursuit; in addition to fear of failure, students with different willingness to choose have differences in the other five