 Urrutia finished his secondary education at Portsmouth Priory School, in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, where he graduated in 1957 with Bachiller "cum laude".He then attended Harvard University graduating "magna cum laude" in 1961 with Bachelor of Economics.He continued to pursue his studies at the received a University of California, Berkeley, where he obtained his Master of Economics in 1964, and his PhD in Economics in 1967 with his dissertation on Labour Unions in Colombia, published by Yale University Press under the title "History of Colombian Labor Movement".