Beyond years of schooling: Genetic associations across educational milestones in two Norwegian cohorts

Although educational attainment is heritable, years-of-education (EduYears) measures are not designed to show how genetic associations vary across discrete educational milestones. In the Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study (MoBa; N = 120,527) and the Norwegian Twin Registry (N = 8,910), we combined genome-wide association studies (GWAS), polygenic indices (PGIs), and twin models to characterize genetic associations with high-school completion and bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral attainment. In transition-specific analyses conditional on prior attainment, observed-scale common-variant heritability (h 2 SNP ) and PGI discrimination followed an inverse-U pattern, peaking for progression from high-school completion to attainment of at least a bachelor’s degree (HS → BSc + ; h 2 SNP ≈ 0.14; R 2 Tjur ≈ 0.05) and declining at postgraduate transitions. Genetic correlations (r g ) with large-scale GWAS of EduYears (EA4) and intelligence were high at earlier transitions but lower at later ones (for EA4, r g ≈ 0.92 at HS → BSc+ and ≈ 0.38 at MSc → PhD). In cumulative analyses of attained status in the full cohort, the point-estimate gap between twin- and SNP-based heritability narrowed from ≈ 0.38 at high-school completion to ≈ 0.11 at PhD, while genetic overlap was lower for distant than adjacent milestones (r g ≈ 0.71 for high-school completion versus PhD and ≈ 0.92 for adjacent milestones). Sensitivity analyses using an alternative intelligence GWAS and additional PGIs showed similar transition-specific trajectories. At the doctoral transition, estimates were obtained among individuals who had attained at least a master’s degree, so attenuation there must be interpreted in light of selection and range restriction. Because EduYears converts distinct credentials and progression steps into a single numerical scale, estimates expressed per additional year should not be interpreted as though one year has the same meaning across the educational sequence. Milestone-preserving analyses make that hidden structure visible and sharpen the interpretation of education GWAS and PGIs.