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Annie Waldman

Annie Waldman is a reporter at ProPublica covering health care.

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Annie Waldman is a reporter at ProPublica covering health care. A piece she published with The New York Times on a New Jersey student debt agency prompted a new law and several new bills, aimed at increasing consumer protections for student borrowers and their families. Following her reporting on the largest accreditor of for-profit colleges, the U.S. Department of Education stripped the agency of its powers. Her reporting with Erica Green of The New York Times led to a federal civil rights investigation of discrimination against Native American students on a reservation in Montana.

In 2018, she contributed to the “Lost Mothers” series, which investigated the high rate of maternal mortality in the United States. This series won the 2018 Goldsmith Prize for investigative reporting, received a George Polk Award, a Peabody and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for explanatory reporting. Following her reporting on maternal mortality in New York, the city launched a $12.8 million initiative to reduce maternal deaths and complications among women of color.

She graduated with honors from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism and the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia, where she was the recipient of the Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship and the Brown Institute Computational Journalism Award. Her stories have been published in The New York Times, the Atlantic, Vice, BBC News, The Chronicle of Higher Education and Consumer Reports.

She has been a finalist twice and won two awards from the Education Writers Association for her education reporting. She has won an award from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers and was a finalist for the Loeb Awards for her reporting with Paul Kiel and Al Shaw on the racial disparity of wage garnishment.

Prior to joining ProPublica, she was a recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship to Israel, where she reported on the plight of refugees from Darfur and Eritrea. She was also a recipient of a residency at Cité International des Arts in Paris, France. She had a documentary film in the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, on the lives of homeless high school students after Hurricane Katrina, which was later broadcast nationally on PBS. She produced "Phantom Cowboys," a documentary about male adolescence in small industry towns, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2018.

Her PGP Key ID is E8F41874.

Democratic Senators Condemn Betsy DeVos’ Record on Civil Rights

More than 30 “disappointed and alarmed” senators penned a letter chastising civil rights enforcement at the Department of Education.

Trump Administration Quietly Rolls Back Civil Rights Efforts Across Federal Government

Previously unannounced directives will limit the Department of Justice’s use of a storied civil rights enforcement tool, and loosen the Department of Education’s requirements on investigations.

Here Are the Financial Disclosures of Officials Trump Has Installed Across the Government

The financial disclosures come from White House staffers, President Trump’s Cabinet and hundreds of members of so-called beachhead teams that the administration has quietly hired at federal agencies.

Voucher Program Helps Well-Off Vermonters Pay for Prep School at Public Expense

Regardless of their income, residents of small Vermont towns can use state vouchers to send their children to boarding schools and ski academies. Some school-choice advocates want to replicate the program nationwide.

DeVos Pick to Head Civil Rights Office Once Said She Faced Discrimination for Being White

Candice Jackson’s intellectual journey raises questions about how actively she will investigate allegations of unfair treatment of minorities and women.

Former Lobbyist With For-Profit Colleges Quits Education Department

Under fire from Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Taylor Hansen quit the department three days after ProPublica revealed his hiring.

College Debt

Updated Debt by Degrees

Use our interactive database to search federal data on almost 7,000 schools in the U.S. to see how well they support their poorest students financially. Now updated with data from the 2014-2015 academic year.

For-Profit Colleges Gain Beachhead in Trump Administration

Taylor Hansen lobbied to weaken regulation of for-profit colleges. Since he joined the Education Department, it’s started doing just that.

Big Pharma Quietly Enlists Leading Professors to Justify $1,000-Per-Day Drugs

As it readies for battle with President Trump over drug prices, the pharmaceutical industry is deploying economists and health care experts from the nation’s top universities. In scholarly articles, blogs and conferences, they lend their prestige to the lobbying blitz, without always disclosing their corporate ties.

The Breakthrough: Uncovering the FBI’s Secret Rules