Oprah Winfrey announced the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls will end operations at the close of 2027, with the campus transitioning back to South Africa’s Gauteng Department of Education.
She’s shifting focus to an expanded scholarship program instead, which her team says will roughly double the number of girls who get access to education through the model. Current students aren’t left behind either. The academy will graduate two more classes, and any remaining students will move to other top tier schools with tuition fully covered by Oprah through graduation.
She opened the school in 2007 alongside Nelson Mandela, and it’s graduated more than 1,000 students since. “The dream was never simply to build a school,” Oprah said. “It was to invest in the limitless potential of young women.”
