<p>This paper investigates the effects of women political empowerment on the gender gap in tertiary education in a panel of 23 sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries over the period 1997–2018. Ordinary least squares, two-stage least squares and quantiles via moments estimates are used&#xa0;for empirical analysis. The result shows that women political empowerment bridges the gender gap in tertiary education. This narrowing&#xa0;effect is more important in democratic countries than in autocratic ones. In addition, in fragile and conflict-affected countries, women political empowerment has a positive effect of gender parity in tertiary education but does not affect gender parity in non-fragile and conflict-affected countries. Likewise, a better representation of women in parliament is almost twice as beneficial in terms of gender gap reduction in tertiary education in middle-income countries than in low-income countries. Moreover,&#xa0;women political empowerment fosters gender equality both in countries that are far from parity and those that are close to it. However, this equalizing effect is more important in countries close to gender parity. Furthermore, women political empowerment has the potential to reduce gender inequality in tertiary education while promoting the convergence of parity between countries in an environment where corruption is kept under control. The results imply that a better women political representation appears to be a crucial ingredient in closing the gender gap in tertiary education and enabling SSA to benefit from the potential of all its citizens for its development.</p>