AbstractBackgroundEducation is associated with level of cognitive ability and may improve cognition by building cognitive reserve and improving health and socioeconomic status (SES) throughout life. This analysis evaluates consistency of associations between education and cognitive domains in the United States and Mexico and asks whether associations can be explained by late‐life health and SES.MethodData includes adults age 50+ from the MexCog in Mexico (n = 2,042) and the Harmonized Cognitive Assessment Protocol (HCAP) in the United States (n = 3,267). Associations between years of education and factor scores for several cognitive domain were estimated separately for each country, with and without adjustment for multiple chronic conditions, income, and wealth.ResultIn gender/age adjusted models, a year of education was associated with having 0.11 (memory), 0.14 (executive function), 0.14 (language), and 0.13 (visuospatial) standard deviations higher cognition in the MexCog and 0.12 (memory), 0.14 (executive function) and 0.13 (language) 0.10 (visuospatial), and 0.07 (orientation) standard deviations higher cognition in the HCAP. Further adjustment for chronic conditions, income, and wealth did not affect the size or statistical significance of estimates in either country.ConclusionEducation positively related with cognition across all domains similarly in the United States and Mexico. Results suggest a direct effect of education on cognitive ability that is not eliminated by reducing educational disparities in later life health and SES.