I had taken out a loan for to attend college, would that count as college expenses even though I haven’t started paying back on it yet?

Neither loans for college nor the repayment (principal or interest) qualify as college expenses.  A qualified education expense would be the tuition you paid with the proceeds from a loan, not the loan itself.

begin with the 1098T as the qualified expenses.  As noted, the loan repayment is not a qualified expense.