Beauty and the Books: Tyra Banks Enrolls at Harvard Business School

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REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

From America’s Next Top Model to America’s next top student? Tyra Banks has been secretly hitting the books at Harvard Business School.

It’s not every day that a celebrity takes the initiative to learn how to run a blossoming business. After all, that’s what employees are for. But then again, Tyra Banks isn’t your average mogul.

The former model-turned-TV host-turned-media magnate is currently enrolled in Harvard Business School’s Executive Education Owner/President Management Program (OPM), a prestigious program that attracts corporate presidents and CEOs from all over the world with sales of between $5 million and several billion. The program requires its students to take one three-week course per year for three years — at a cost of $31,000 a pop.

(More on NewsFeed: See why Harvard is still the world’s most reputable university)

Enviably, Banks fits right in with the other 200 students who are enrolled in the program — well, at least in some ways. We’re pretty sure there are no other Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition cover girls walking the halls of Harvard, but Banks was named the highest-paid woman in prime time by Forbes in 2009, and brings in an annual income of close to $30 million.

When Banks was just 17, she traded in text books for the fashion runways of Paris, which jump-started her successful modeling career. Now that she’s at Harvard, Banks hopes to take a more “hand-on” approach to her multi-million-dollar media business. “Harvard Business School [is] the number one business school in the entire world. In order for my company to grow and be the best, and to reach these women, and to serve them, I needed the best. So I went to the best,” Banks said in a CBS interview.

(More on TIME.com: See Tyra Banks in the TIME 100 finalists for 2008)

Beauty and brains? It seems like Banks has it all: an Emmy-award winning (and needless to say, popular) talk show, a TV hosting gig, and a new fashion and beauty website, TypeF, which is launching soon. Is there anything this woman can’t do? (via CBS News)