Investments	3 Months Ended
Dec. 01, 2012
Investments, Debt and Equity Securities [Abstract]
Investments	Investments We own investments in marketable securities that have been designated as "available for sale" in accordance with ASC 320, Investments - Debt and Equity Securities. Available for sale securities are carried at fair value with the unrealized gains and losses reported in "Accumulated Other Comprehensive Income," a component of stockholders' equity. At December 1, 2012, we held $9.7 million (par value) of tax-exempt ARS, which are variable-rate debt securities and have a long-term maturity with the interest rate being reset through Dutch auctions that are typically held every 7, 28 or 35 days. Prior to February 2008, these securities traded at par and are callable at par at the option of the issuer. Interest is typically paid at the end of each auction period or semiannually. The ARS we hold are rated AAA by Standard & Poor's Ratings Services and AAA to A by Fitch Ratings, and are collateralized by student loans guaranteed by the US Government under the Federal Family Education Loan Program. Since February 2008, most ARS auctions have failed and there is no assurance that future auctions for our ARS will succeed and, as a result, our ability to liquidate our investment and fully recover the par value in the near term may be limited or nonexistent. We have no reason to believe that any of the underlying issuers of our ARS are presently at risk of default. We have continued to receive interest payments on the ARS in accordance with their terms. We believe we will ultimately be able to liquidate our ARS related investments without significant loss primarily due to the collateral securing the ARS, but also due to the partial redemptions we have received over the last three fiscal years at par value. However, redemption could take until final maturity of the ARS (up to 29 years) to realize the par value of our investments. Due to the changes and uncertainty in the ARS market, we believe the recovery period for these investments is likely to be longer than 12 months and as a result, we have classified these investments as long-term as of December 1, 2012. During the first quarter of Fiscal 2013 we received notice of a partial redemption on a particular ARS with payment received on December 4, 2012. As a result, of the total $9.7 million of ARS investments, we have classified $9.4 million (par value) as long-term with the remaining amount of $250,000 classified as short-term investments as of December 1, 2012. At December 1, 2012, there was insufficient observable ARS market information available to determine the fair value of our ARS investments. Therefore, we estimated fair value by incorporating assumptions that market participants would use in their estimates of fair value. Some of these assumptions included credit quality, final stated maturities, estimates on the probability of the issue being called prior to final maturity, impact due to extended periods of maximum auction rates and broker quotes from independent evaluators. Based on this analysis, we recorded an unrealized temporary impairment of $577,000 in accumulated other comprehensive income before tax considerations related to our long-term ARS investments of $9.4 million (par value) at December 1, 2012.

Investments

We own investments in marketable securities that have been designated as "available for sale" in accordance with ASC 320, Investments - Debt and Equity Securities. Available for sale securities are carried at fair value with the unrealized gains and losses reported in "Accumulated Other Comprehensive Income," a component of stockholders' equity.

At December 1, 2012, we held $9.7 million (par value) of tax-exempt ARS, which are variable-rate debt securities and have a long-term maturity with the interest rate being reset through Dutch auctions that are typically held every 7, 28 or 35 days. Prior to February 2008, these securities traded at par and are callable at par at the option of the issuer. Interest is typically paid at the end of each auction period or semiannually. The ARS we hold are rated AAA by Standard & Poor's Ratings Services and AAA to A by Fitch Ratings, and are collateralized by student loans guaranteed by the US Government under the Federal Family Education Loan Program.

Since February 2008, most ARS auctions have failed and there is no assurance that future auctions for our ARS will succeed and, as a result, our ability to liquidate our investment and fully recover the par value in the near term may be limited or nonexistent. We have no reason to believe that any of the underlying issuers of our ARS are presently at risk of default. We have continued to receive interest payments on the ARS in accordance with their terms. We believe we will ultimately be able to liquidate our ARS related investments without significant loss primarily due to the collateral securing the ARS, but also due to the partial redemptions we have received over the last three fiscal years at par value. However, redemption could take until final maturity of the ARS (up to 29 years) to realize the par value of our investments. Due to the changes and uncertainty in the ARS market, we believe the recovery period for these investments is likely to be longer than 12 months and as a result, we have classified these investments as long-term as of December 1, 2012. During the first quarter of Fiscal 2013 we received notice of a partial redemption on a particular ARS with payment received on December 4, 2012. As a result, of the total $9.7 million of ARS investments, we have classified $9.4 million (par value) as long-term with the remaining amount of $250,000 classified as short-term investments as of December 1, 2012.

At December 1, 2012, there was insufficient observable ARS market information available to determine the fair value of our ARS investments. Therefore, we estimated fair value by incorporating assumptions that market participants would use in their estimates of fair value. Some of these assumptions included credit quality, final stated maturities, estimates on the probability of the issue being called prior to final maturity, impact due to extended periods of maximum auction rates and broker quotes from independent evaluators. Based on this analysis, we recorded an unrealized temporary impairment of $577,000 in accumulated other comprehensive income before tax considerations related to our long-term ARS investments of $9.4 million (par value) at December 1, 2012.