Education might affect cancer risk and survival through greater access to resources connected to prevention and cancer treatments. However, only few studies have tried to understand the causal effect of education. This quasi-experimental design exploits the exogenous variation in years of education due to compulsory schooling law changes in 1947 and 1972 in England and Wales. The data source is the ONS Longitudinal Study (ONS LS). The identification of the causal effect of education on cancer risk and survival is achieved using the regression discontinuity framework. The effect of these reforms on educational attainment is found large. Therefore, this work tests the presence of discontinuous changes in the hazards of developing and surviving cancer. The focus on both incidence and survival could shed light on different mechanisms connecting education and cancer. Understanding better causes of educational inequalities in cancer is extremely important given widening diffusion for this morbidity.