After a Russian-speaking primary school, Nurkse attended the elite Cathedral School of Tallinn, the most prestigious, German-language secondary school in the city, from where he graduated with higher honors in 1928. He continued his education at the Law School and the economics department of the University of Tartu from 1926 to 1928, and then in economics at the University of Edinburgh. He graduated with a first class degree in economics, under professor Sir Frederick Ogilvie, in 1932. He earned a Carnegie Fellowship to study at the University of Vienna from 1932 to 1934.