It was founded in 1895 and is operated by the Cistercian monastery of Wilhering Abbey.

In 1904 it was acknowledged by the Imperial-Royal Ministry of Culture and Education as private school under public law.

Being home for several intellectuals resisting Nazism, the school was closed after the German Annexation of Austria in 1938 but reopened immediately after the World War II in 1945.

[2] In 1980 Wilhering College first admitted girls to lessons and is now fully coeducational.

From 1923 to 1938 and from 1968 to 2003 some of them were organised in the student fraternity Hilaria which was founded under the patronage of Abbot Gabriel Fazeny.