Objective To explore the mediating effect of professional attitude between academic emotion and career expectation among higher vocational nursing students under the background of national-controlled enrollment planning, so as to provide a basis for effectively improving the career expectation level of higher vocational nursing students and stabilizing the construction of nursing ta-lent teams. Methods A total of 977 nursing students were selected as research subjects by convenience sampling method from Ja-nuary to April 2025.The General Information Questionnaire, College Students′ Career Expectation Scale, General Academic Emotion Questionnaire and Chinese Version of Nursing Students′ Professional Attitude Scale were used for investigation. Results The average scores for vocational expectations, academic emotions, and professional attitudes of higher vocational nursing students were (3.12±0.45), (3.32±0.46), and (2.72±0.59), respectively.Academic emotions and professional attitudes both showed significant positive correlations with vocational expectations (r=0.157,0.635, both P＜0.05).Professional attitudes played a mediating role between academic emotions and vocational expectations, accounting for 28.22% of the total effect. Conclusion Nursing educators in higher vocational should guide nursing students to correctly understand the significance of national-controlled enrollment planning over the distribution of nursing programs, improve their academic motivation, and foster a proper professional attitude, so as to enhance their career expectation and further promote the high-quality training of nursing talents.