No, this is how the 2% rule works.
If you had $20,000 of tuition expenses, you claim $10,000 for the lifetime learning and $10,000 as a work expense.
Then you look at your gross income, which must be less than $65,000 or you wouldn't qualify for lifetime learning, so let's say $50.000. 2% of $50,000 is $1,000, so your work related expense deduction is reduced by $1000, leaving a $9,000 deduction.
Then you need to look to see if your itemized deductions were more than your standard deduction or not. Let's say you had $3,000 of itemized deductions so the program used the $6200 standard deduction instead. If you claim $9,000 of work related expense, now your itemized deductions are $12,000, which is $5800 more than the standard deduction. Claiming an extra $5800 of deductions would reduce your taxable income by that amount, which would reduce your tax owed by 25% of that amount (if you are single and your income was $50,000, you are in the 25% bracket.) So it could save you $1350 in tax.
If you really paid $20,000 in tuition on an income of $50,000, then deleting the lifetime learning credit and claiming the entire amount as a work related expense might actually give you a larger benefit, if you are in the 25% tax bracket. (The credit is 20%, the tax brackets are 15% and 25%, so it depends on exactly where you fall in the brackets, and what other itemized deductions you have.)
The only way to be sure would be to test multiple scenarios.
