Previous studies on the characteristics of students' learning engagement in higher education focused on undergraduates in research universities, but the characteristics of freshmen's learning engagement in local higher education institutions were not studied suficiently. Using convenience sampling, the present study selected 515 freshmen from a local higher education institution in Guangdong province to complete Student Learning Engagement Scale and Academic Motivation Scale-College Version. The results indicated that three latent classes were identified, including high engagement-deep learning group(11.85%), moderate engagement-peers interactive group (35.92%) and low engagement-habit oriented group (52.23%). There were significant differences in the scores of intrinsic motivation (p<0.001,p'=0.04) and extrinsic motivation(p<0.05,p2=0.01). The scores of intrinsic motivation was lower in the low engagement-habit oriented group than in the other two groups, and the scores of extrinsic motivation was lower in the low engagement-habit oriented groupthan in the moderate engagement-peers interactive group. These findings suggest that freshmens learning engagement in local higher education institution is heterogeneity, which have implications for freshmen's academic counselling, supervision and management.