As the only borrower on the loans, it is possible that you provided more than 50% of your own support. It depends on the actual total draw you took from the loan in the tax year. If you used loan money to pay for qualified education expenses only (tuition, books and lab fees) then most likely you did NOT provide more than 50% of your support. However, if your draw is large enough - say $15-20K over the qualified education expenses, then you very well may have provided more than 50% of your own support. Understand what counts as support.
Basically, in addition to qualified education expenses, it's shelter (rent), utilities, food, clothing, and limited transportation. THings that do not count as support is money spent for a carnival cruise during the spring, chiristmas or other holiday break, as well as money making payments on a $60K BMW you may have purchased with that borrowed money.
Also, even with loans only in your name it's perfectly possible to still not qualify to claim yourself, if you have scholarships, grants and/or 529 funds. THis is because of the order in which the IRS looks at your income.
First, they consider scholarships/grants. Scholarships/grants can be used for tuition, books and lab fees. That's it and there are no exceptions. Any excess is taxable income to you and is considered taxable passive income since you did not physically go out and earn that money.
Next, they look at 529/Coverdell funds reported to you on a 1099-Q. These funds can be used to pay for tuition, books, lab fees *and* room and board. Then anything left over after that is taxable passive income to you since you did not pahysically go out and earn that money.
Next, they consider "other sources" such as gifts from Aunt Mary. That to is taxable passive income not physically earned by you.
So it's perfectly possible that if you have say, $20K in scholarships/grants, another $10K in 529/Coverdell funds, that total passive income of $30K would quite easily pay for more than half of your support during the year, and that would include the qualified education expenses too. Therefore, you could have $100K in student loans and you are unable to prove or justify that you spend more than $60K of it on support, you did not provide more than 50% of your own support for the tax year and therefore can't take the self exemption.
Now if you do qualify for the self-exemption, you're going to find that you will not and do not qualify for anywhere near the credits your parents would get if they claim you as a dependent and they claim the education credits. That's because borrowed money is not *your* money. If never was, is not now, and never will be. Your *credit* (if you want to call it that) will be when you start paying it back. You will be able to deduct the interest you pay on the loan each tax year, and that deductible interest will be reported to you on a 1098-E, with the first one issued to you for the year you actually start paying back the loan.
There's a worksheet you can use to determine if you do "in fact" provide more than 50% of your own support, at <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="
https://apps.irs.gov/app/vita/content/globalmedia/teacher/worksheet_for_determining_support_4012.pdf...Work through t the worksheet "as if" you are the parent.
