Q. What might be working against me is that I took these proceeds late in 2024 to pay for the 2025 semester.
A. Not really. She is using all the tuition to claim the lifetime Learning Credit (LLC) and keeping her scholarship tax free. None of your 529 distribution will be allocated to tuition.
Q. Can you claim the room and board expenses for the 1st term of 2025 against your 2024 1099-Q. Technically, probably not, since the money was not actually spent in 2024. That said,
See previous discussions:
https://ttlc.intuit.com/community/college-education/discussion/i-took-a-529-distribution-in-2021-for...
https://ttlc.intuit.com/community/college-education/discussion/529-provider-distributed-funds-on-12-...
