Higher education intentions play a crucial role in preparing students to navigate the digital transformation and the demands of 21st-century industry. This quantitative explanatory study was employed to examine the effects of employment prospects, parental socioeconomic status, and career motivation on the higher education intentions of students at the Indonesian Embassy School in Riyadh. A saturated sampling technique was applied, involving all 53 regular and distance learning senior high school students enrolled during the second semester of the 2025/2026 academic year. Primary data were collected through a five-point Likert-scale questionnaire administered via Google Forms. The data were analyzed using inferential statistical techniques with SPSS version 23. The findings indicate that employment prospects, parental socioeconomic status, and career motivation simultaneously exert a significant effect on students' higher education intentions. Partially, employment prospects emerged as the most influential predictor, followed by career motivation, in fostering students' intentions to pursue higher education, whereas parental socioeconomic status did not have a significant effect on such intentions. These findings imply that scholarship programs should be sustained, while schools should strengthen career guidance services and implement systematic career interest mapping. Parents are encouraged to focus on providing psychological support regarding their children's future educational and career plans without allowing financial concerns to become the primary consideration. Future research is recommended to investigate additional variables beyond those examined in the present study using larger and more diverse samples, thereby contributing to the advancement of knowledge in this area.