After the 5 months, she transferred to a school in town where we live and came back to live at home. Can I claim the housing expense while she was at the out of town school?
Thanks, that answers most of the question and TurboTax tells me I am providing more than 6 months while she is living at home and is thus a valid dependent
Being away at school is just a "temporary absence" so you can still say they lived with you all year.
What are you asking? Are you trying to figure out whether she provided over half her own support or are you trying to see if some education credit is available? If the latter, then what xmasbaby0 wrote is the answer.