In the cause of comprehensive renovation of Vietnam from 1986 until now, the Party and State have implemented many guidelines, policies and measures to renovate and develop the higher education. The higher education has been gradually integrating into and moving towards the world's conventional education model. Despite some remaining constraints and challenges, the process of renovation of tertiary education system has gained important achievements and made great contributions to the socio-economic development. This paper initially studies some attainments of the higher education system in Vietnam such as the renovation of higher education model, scale-up of education, mobilisation of investments of social strata for education, diversification of training forms and enhancement of international cooperation, thereby affirming meaningful contributions of the higher education system over 30 years since the renovation process of the country (1986-2016).