Polygenic score prediction of years spent in education across four published GWAS. Note: For each GWAS for educational attainment (EA), the year of publication (in parentheses) is shown along the x-axis, and the discovery sample sizes are given above their respective bar. Bars indicate the weighted mean proportion of variance (R2) of polygenic score predictions of educational attainment in the independent samples that were reported in the original GWAS articles. Error bars reflect 95% confidence intervals (CIs) Some 95% CIs were not reported in the original article and were estimated for the weighted mean R2. Gray circles reflect the polygenic score prediction from each independent sample, whose N is indexed by circle size (for details on the independent samples, see Supplementary Materials section 2). Credit: Educational Psychology Review (2024). DOI: 10.1007/s10648-024-09928-4
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Researchers at the University of York are calling for further exploration of the role DNA could play in predicting educational outcomes. The work is published in the journal Educational Psychology Review.

The researchers point to the findings of their new study, which reveal that recent advances in DNA analysis mean we now know genetics are one of the strongest predictors of how far an individual will go in education and the grades they will achieve.

By pooling data from multiple studies looking at the links between genes and education, the researchers gained an overview of how good genetic testing has become at predicting educational outcomes.
Genetic differences

They found that up to 25% of differences in school grades between individuals can be attributed to genetic differences. This is a greater effect than a person's family socioeconomic background (10%) and the Ofsted rating of the school a child attends, which only accounts for 4% of an individual's educational success.

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