This study examines the historical role that institutions of higher education, particularly the University of Prishtina (UP), played in the political and national emancipation of Albanians in Kosovo during the 1960s and 1970s. Having evolved from a series of institutions of higher education into a university in its own right in the 1970s, the UP became a venue for the inspiration of political actions, demonstrations and national consciousness. The key concepts of the present analysis revolve around the links between higher education (specifically, UP) and political influences in constructing a political and, later, unified national emancipation of Albanians in Kosovo, Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY).