Why was there such a lack of interest?

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Student finances
Surviving letters and also formularies for Cistercian scholars show that in the Middle Ages, just as now, students often faced financial difficulties. These include letters to abbots and fellow students requesting a loan, requests for a top-up, for a horse and money to make the return journey home, as well as letters informing the abbot of their decision to leave Oxford, given a lack of finances.
[Richardson, ‘Cistercian formularies’, pp. 296-7; pp. 313, 314, 319-320, 322]

There are various reasons for this lack of enthusiasm. In the first instance, these were difficult times with political unrest, division in the Church and heavy demands from the king, the Order and the papacy. It was costly to send a monk to study at Rewley, for there were travel expenses to meet, books and bedding to buy, and the monk’s keep to find. Not every abbey considered a university education a financial priority. Moreover, there was reason to regard this as a potentially negative experience. It was feared that exposure to the bad behaviour of other students might lead monks astray, and that scholars would then return to their communities ill-mannered and undisciplined. They might also become arrogant, since many regarded an Oxford education as a sure step to the abbacy and returned to their monastery with something of a superiority complex, demanding privileges and preferential treatment. That Oxford did indeed function as a training ground for future office-bearers is suggested by the subject-matter of books owned by Cistercian scholars at the studium. These include material specifically related to the administration of an abbey, such as instructions on how to accept or resign from the abbacy, how to conduct visitation, and formulae for the profession of novices.
[Read more about these books and view pages]

The earliest purpose-built Oxford college?
Excavation of the Rewley site in the 1980s uncovered what is thought to be part of the original Cistercian studium, making this ‘the earliest purpose-built Oxford college.’ Although all that now remains of Rewley are pieces of a doorway and of precinct wall, a wonderful legacy of the studium survives in nearby Yarnton parish church, where an original stained glass window of c. 1400-1420 shows two Cistercian monks kneeling. These monks were probably the donors of the window and scholars at Rewley, for the parish church had been appropriated to the college in 1294.
[Dobson, ‘The religious orders’, p. 545; France, The Cistercians in Medieval Art, p. 212.]

On a more practical note, there was always the possibility that an abbey did not have any suitable candidate to send to Rewley. There were also complaints that the college, which was situated east of where the train station now stands, was too remote.(7) Low numbers, a lack of resources and finances meant that Rewley struggled to survive as a Cistercian college. By the end of the fourteenth century – and perhaps as early as 1344 - it had ceased to be the Cistercian studium, but continued as a Cistercian abbey.(8)