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Hi Dyons,

 We're probably going to be getting deep in this discussion so this will most likely be a long thread. Hopefully, we don't get to much "clutter" from others, since this is a public user-to-user forum. However, I don't want to discourage input from others that may be able to contribute useful (key word, "useful") information to the immediate subject being discussed at a specific point in time as this thread grows.

First, neither you, I or the school gets to decide was is or is not a qualified education expense. The IRS has already clearly defined what a qualified eduction expense is, in IRS Publication 970. https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p970.pdf

But first, I need to back up a bit before we get to the education stuff at all, since your son is attending a military academy. As a retired Air Force vet myself, I'm curious as to which one if you don't mind.

Understand that for an undergraduate college student, there are actually two completely separate and unrelated determinations that need to be made. The first determination is if the student qualifies as your dependent. This has absolutely nothing what-so-ever to do with the education stuff, or IRS Publication 970. The dependency requirements are covered in IRS Publication 17 starting on page 24 of that document. https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p17.pdf  So for this post, that's all we're going to discuss. My intent @dyons is not only to educate and provide understanding to you, but to "the masses" that may read through this thread in the future. So please bear with me if I'm hashing through what you may already know.

There are two types of dependents. Qualify Relative Dependent, and Qualifying Child Dependent. I am going on the assumption that your son was under the age of 24 on Dec 31 of the tax year. That means the qualifying child dependent rules "should" apply to him Here they are in a nutshell.

If the student:

 - Was under the age of 24 on Dec 31 of the tax year and;

 - Was enrolled as a full time student for any one semester that started in the tax year and;

 - Was enrolled in an accredited institution of higher learning and;

 - Was enrolled in a course of study that will lead to a degree *OR* credentialed certificationand ;

 - The *STUDENT* did *NOT* provide more than 50% of *THEIR OWN* support for the entire tax year, then:

The parents qualify to claim the student as a dependent on the parent's tax return. Period. End of Story.

Several things I want to point out concerning the above requirements which are not mentioned in those requirements, because they are "not" requirements.

1) The student's income doesn't matter. There is no limit. It's perfectly possible for the student to earn a million dollars, yet the parents still qualify to claim the student as a dependent on the parent's tax return.

2) The support requirement is on the student, and *ONLY* the student. There is absolutely no requirement for the parents to provide the student any support. *NOT* *ONE* *SINGLE* *PENNY*.

3) There are only two possible ways the student can provide more than 50% of their own support, and "ONLY" two ways.

 A- The student has a W-2 job or is self-employed, and earned enough taxable income to justify paying more than half of their own support.

 B - The student is the *PRIMARY* borrower on a *qualified* student loan *and* enough funds were distributed from that loan to the student in the tax year, to justify more than half of their own support. If the student is not the *Primary" borrower on the loan, then it's not considered and can't be considered as income used by the student to provide their own support.

So any other monies received by the student, or received by the school on the student's behalf from any other source (including the parents) is considered to be third party support, and just flat out *does* *not* *count* for the student providing their own support.

Now, we need to define what the IRS considers to be "support". That is clearly defined by the IRS, but at the immediate moment I can't find it in IRS Publication 17 or any other place on the IRS website. But I have read it, and here it is;

What is Support?

 - Tution, books, lab fees

 - Housing (including the cost of utilities)

 - Food

 - Clothing

 - Transportation

 - Entertainment

Note that all expenses must be "reasonable" for a college student. For example, if the student spends spring break in Vegas and losses $5,000 at the casinos, that is "NOT" a "reasonable" entertainment expense for a college student by any stretch of the imagination.

Paying $5000 a month rent to live off campus instead of in campus provided housing is also not a "reasonable" expense for a college student.

So in other words, "keep it real" or the IRS will be on you like files on honey, generally about 24-36 months "after" you've filed a return with such unreasonable expenses claimed on it.

When it comes to determining if the student provided more than 50% of their own support or not, the IRS will apply "all" third party source income to the support expenses first. Then if there are any expenses left, then they will apply the student's earned income and/or borrowed money to the remaining support expenses.  With this method, that means with a lot of 3rd party support, it is perfectly possible for the student to have earned or borrowed a million dollars, yet still not have provided more than 50% of their own support. That means the parents would still qualify to claim them.

The key word in the last sentence above is "QUALIFY". Here's how this works. If the parents 'QUALIFY" to claim the student as their dependent, there is no requirement for them to do so. The parent's don't have to claim the student if they don't want to. So the parents have a choice here. However, the student does *not* have a choice.

If the parents *qualify* to claim the student, then the student must indicate on the students tax return that "I can be claimed on someone else's return.". Period. It does not matter if the parents actually claim the student or not. The parents "QUALIFY" to claim the student.

I'll wait for your response here @dyons in case there's any questions. If no questions, then we'll get into the actual education stuff and start getting into what your concerns are.