Don't base your qualified education expenses on the 1098-T alone. Those forms are not always correct, or inclusive. What you need to do is to log on to your college account and go to the financial section of your account. Then drill down for the details. Dates are important, so let me explain.
Colleges work in academic years, while the IRS works in calendar years. So the reality is, it takes you five calendar years to get that four year degree. So with that said:
Scholarships and grants are claimed as taxable income (initially) in the tax year that scholarship or grant is received. It flat out does not matter what year that scholarship or grant is *for*.
Tuition and other *qualified* education expenses are claimed in the tax year they are paid. It does not matter what tax year is paid *for*.
When looking at the financial information in your online account, when it comes to tuition paid you are only interested in the date the payment was applied. The start date of the class it was applied to does not matter. If the payment "received" date is listed separately from the applied, date, then again, it's the date the payment was applied that matters for tax purposes.
For scholarship monies received by the college and not applied, it's not a problem. The program will ask you about this situation as you work through it, and will handle it accordingly. But understand that if the college cuts you a check and sends it to you because those scholarships and grants are more than your qualified education expenses, then that money they send to you is taxable income to *you* the student, and must be reported as such. (Again, the program handles this pretty efficiently)
Don't be surprised if you end up paying taxes on some of that scholarship money. Remember, it takes you five calendar years to get that four year degree. So next year on your 2017 taxes, that means all your qualified expenses would be "out of pocket" and therefore deductible, provided you have the "earned" income in 2017 to deduct it from. (That's why the parents are the ones to claim the education expenses on the parent's tax return)
I've added more details on this, in a separate post in this thread, in case you find it helpful.
