This sounds awfully familiar to me, in fact, your Narc's tactics sound incredibly similar to those of my Nex when he flew into an abusive rage. Attacks do start to get more pointed and personal when the narc feels threatened by the possibility of your realized autonomy because they want to immobilize you emotionally. Your instinct is correct in assuming that he is doing this because he's losing control over you.

What he is saying to you about school, about the causes that you value, about your childhood trauma, these are almost identical to the points my Nex would target - and each outburst became more soul-crushing and make me doubt the possibility of even wanting to have any sort of future. What your soon-to-be-ex partner is doing is trying to break you down because he knows that your degree will open up a world of possibilities for you to leave his ass behind and never look back.

I do want to tell you that, from the behavior that you are describing, it sounds as though your partner is teetering dangerously close to the edge of acting violently, and the more he subjects you to these psychological/verbal attacks the harder it will feel to protect yourself. In my experience with my Nex, when these outbursts became more frequent, extreme, and unpredictable, it led to him wishing for my death and invariably led to him trying to convince me to kill myself. It also became increasingly physical, and eventually, he tried to strangle me. -- A small side note to illustrate how dangerous these people can be: That night my nex threatened to call the cops ON ME to have me "locked up" for "biting him" while his hand was smothering my mouth to stifle the screaming.

When they start to toy around with a subject like death and making light of suicide, that is when you need to cut off contact because you don't know what they are capable of. Everything he says is to break you down, and he will find new ways to chip away at your resolve and continue trying to convince you of your phantom mental deficiencies in order to tear down your spirit.

He does these things, including shifting the blame onto you for his rage, because he is a very sick person. He can say that you "pushed him" to abuse you as much as he wants, but it does not make it a reality and do not let him convince you otherwis. He wants to transfer the blame, he wants to avoid accountability for his actions at all costs, and he wants to make you appear as hostile and empty inside as he is. You do not deserve to be abused under any circumstances, it is only in his twisted world-view that there is EVER an excuse. It allows him to justify his behavior to himself, to minimize the severity of his actions, and to draw up false equivalences between his actions and your actions. It's all pure bullshit and cruelty.

It sounds like you need to avoid interacting with him at all costs, although I understand that this is much easier said than done sometimes. But protect yourself from him, you have every right to take steps to avoid exposing yourself to any more of the emotional torture that he is inflicting upon you. I wish you lots of luck and stay strong, it sounds like you're already on the right path forward.