A student, under 24 cannot claim the (up to ) $1000 refundable portion of the American Opportunity credit (there are exceptions but your student does not qualify). There is a provision that allows the student to claim the non refundable tuition credit himself, but then the parent has to forgo claiming the student as a dependent (and the $500 other dependent credit). For this to work, the student would have to have a tax liability to take the credit against. Since your student only has $12,000 of income, this is unlikely.
