Skip to content
ProPublica Donate
ProPublica Donate

Marian Wang

Marian Wang was a reporter for ProPublica, covering education and college debt.

Marian Wang was a reporter for ProPublica, covering education and college debt. She joined ProPublica in 2010, first blogging about a variety of accountability issues. Her later stories focused on how rising college costs and the complexity of the student loan system affect students and their families. Prior to coming to ProPublica, she worked at Mother Jones magazine in San Francisco and freelanced for a number of Chicago-based publications, including The Chicago Reporter, an investigative magazine focused on issues of race and poverty.

Gulf Oil Spill

BP Resists EPA's Order to Use Less Toxic Dispersant

With oil still flowing into the Gulf of Mexico, BP says it will keep using a dispersant that has been linked to health problems. Now the government is warning that it could push BP aside in the effort to solve the problem.

Gulf Oil Spill

Coast Guard Flagged Potential Problems With Spill Response in 2004

Coast Guard officials have known for years about potential problems with federal and industry response to an oil spill, the Alabama Press-Register reported, and the Deepwater Horizon may have had less scrutiny because it was registered under the Marshall Islands.

Gulf Oil Spill

BP: Oil Flow "Might Be a Little More" Than Earlier Estimate

BP says it's collecting about the same amount of oil as it had earlier said was spilling into the Gulf, acknowledging, at least obliquely, that its earlier numbers were off. The company insists there is no reliable way to measure the flow.

Investigations You Need to Read: Thursday

Gulf Oil Spill

After Approving Toxic Dispersants, EPA Orders BP to Use Less Toxic Ones

The EPA has given BP 24 hours to choose less toxic dispersants to apply to the Gulf oil spill, a published report says. The products being used appear to be more toxic and less effective than other approved dispersants.

Gulf Oil Spill

While BP's Oil Gushes, Company Keeps Information to a Trickle

BP has been tightly restricting public access to details about the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. And in some cases, the federal government has deferred to the oil company when asked for information.

Gulf Oil Spill

In Gulf Spill, BP Using Dispersants Banned in U.K.

The oil dispersants that BP is using after the Deepwater Horizon disaster are more toxic than other such products, EPA data indicate. The dispersants have not been allowed in Britain for more than a decade.

Check Out President Obama's and VP Biden's Financial Disclosure Forms

Gulf Oil Spill

Damaged Equipment, Feuding Between BP and Transocean in Lead-Up to Explosion

In the weeks before the Deepwater Horizon spill, a worker on the rig told "60 Minutes" that part of the blowout preventer's seal broke in an accident weeks before the explosion that caused the Gulf spill, and that a supervisor said it was "no big deal."

Gulf Oil Spill

BP Turns Down Offers to Better Measure Gulf Disaster

Scientists believe there is much more oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico than the government estimates. But BP says that there is no way to measure the leak accurately, and that efforts to do so are "not relevant."