OK, so the scholarships would be unearned income, and we definitely don't want to pay tax on that in our marginal tax bracket, and give up a $500 dependent credit, just so she could get an additional $25 from the AOTC. So we'll claim her as a dependent this year and she won't claim the scholarships as income, and we won't claim the AOTC.
I'll look at the worksheet for 2026 - but even if she was a student for part of 5 months in 2026, I just assumed that if she found a fulltime job and moved to her own place shortly after graduation and was supporting herself for more than 6 months, and the last semester's expenses were paid out of her pocket, scholarship, and 529 with nothing coming from us, that she would not be considered a dependent, because we would have not been paying anything toward her support?
