I didn't realize your post was directed at me,  the title through me.  The Fed isn't trying to unfreeze the ARS market.  They are trying to free up capital to encourage lending instituitions to keep issuing student loans, big difference.  The Student Loan ARS vehicles were created by the lending institutions so they could sell the loans and get them off their balance sheets to free up more capital so they could loan more money.  The higher interest rates paid if an auction fails was intended to make the investment more attractive.  The problem is with such a large percentage of them failing it isn't possible to continue resetting rates higher and higher.  Eventually there isn't enough capital to continue and it starts eating away at the principal amount.  The problem here is simple, individuals and corporations decided an extra 1/10th% was more valuable than parking the money in a traditional money market.  They believed that extra % was free money at no risk, but we all no there's no such thing as free money without risk.  They knowingly placed their money in securities and I don't know of many securities that don't come without some kind of risk.  One more thing, that 80 cents on the dollar your talking about is much more generous than the numbers I'm hearing.  Now how important would it be to know some details of the NDA if we find out our capital is locked up?