This is an attempt to present the educational policies of the Cistercian abbeys at Pelplin and Oliwa in the 13th-15th centuries. An analysis of the statutes and regulations on the subject of the monks’ access to higher education shows that the General Chapter obliged the Cistercian houses in Prussia to send the more gifted brethren to university, i.e., to one of the university colleges maintained by the Order. Whereas only a few monks made use of that opportunity in the 13th and 14th centuries, their numbers soared in the 15th century when Cistercian colleges opened at the universities of Krakow and Leipzig. At first, the monks from Oliwa and Pelplin were obliged to study in Germany. Later, however, they were instructed to move to Krakow, under the jurisdiction of the Abbot of Mogila. He urged the abbots of Pelplin and Oliwa to enforce that ruling, but they were anything but ready to heed his appeals. Instead, they pleaded with the Chapter for an exemption from the ‘Krakow’ clause by pointing to the difficult financial situation of their convents as well as ethnic reasons. Their opposition to closer cooperation with the Cistercian college in Krakow was so strong that the General Chapter was eventually compelled to give the two abbots a free hand in the choice of a university for members of their order.