It's unusual for a SuperUser to have to ask a tax question, but this is a new situation for me and I'm not sure what the proper timing is. (I always use Freedom Edition, but its separate AnswerXchange is pretty much useless.)
I started law school in fall 2017 with a scholarship equal to 100% of tuition (thus fully nontaxable), but *not* covering fees which are paid for out of my student loan. My school billed me for spring 2018 tuition & fees in December, but did not credit my spring 2018 scholarship or student loan to my account until January. My 1098-T has tuition & fees for both fall 2017 & spring 2018 in Box 2 (with Box 7 checked), but only the fall 2017 scholarship in Box 5. I will be claiming the lifelong learning credit; law school doesn't qualify for AOTC and the tuition & fees deduction expired after 2016. I won't get a 1098-E; though I have capitalized loan interest, I didn't make any payments towards the loan in 2017.
From reading other answers, I'm pretty sure I will have to reduce the Box 2 amount by the spring 2018 scholarship; but I'm not sure if I also have to back out the fees paid with the loan. The loan counts as payment for the fees; the question is whether it's in 2017 when billed, or in 2018 when the loan was disbursed. Do I need to reduce my Box 2 amount by *all* spring 2018 expenses (whether paid by scholarship or loan), by just the tuition paid with the spring 2018 scholarship, or by some other amount?
No one bit, but as usual my own research into IRS publications answered my own question. Per page 24 of https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p970.pdf : "Treat loan disbursements sent directly to the educational institution as paid on the date the institution credits the student's account." In other words, the proper way to do it in my case is to back out the spring 2018 expenses and add them to my 2018 return (when both scholarship & loan were credited to my account), both using the link under Box 2 on TurboTax's 1098-Ts.
A tip on page 27 seems to countenance doing it the other way, but it's really aimed at expenses actually paid in 2017 but refunded or covered by a scholarship in 2018; it doesn't avoid the train wreck if you use Box 2 amounts but get a final 1098-T with zero in Box 2 but scholarships in Box 5. (It also suggests the IRS doesn't look at this too closely. Perhaps the real problem is Congress allowing colleges to report tuition when billed instead of when paid, unlike nearly every other information return and the tax code's own "cash accounting" rules.)