With the looming global warming crisis, the question of how to achieve carbon neutrality is becoming an important issue confronting many countries. In this study, we use modern economic growth theory to investigate the impact of education on carbon intensity in China’s 30 provinces from 2000 to 2021. On this basis, a fixed effect model, threshold model, and spatial Durbin model are used to analyze the influence mechanism and spatial effect. The results show that education significantly reduces carbon intensity; improving education reduces carbon intensity by upgrading industrial structure, enhancing green technology innovation, and upgrading consumption structure; the carbon intensity reduction effect of education is nonlinear and gradually increases with increasing levels of industrial structure upgrading, accelerating green technology innovation, and upgrading consumption structure; and education reduces carbon intensity mainly through the spillover effect. The negative spillover effects in provinces with low levels of carbon intensity are significantly greater than the direct effects, whereas the spillover effects in provinces with high levels of carbon intensity are negative but not significant.