Education section missing the ability to enter Other Education Expenses

[BK2000]

TT Deluxe Desktop Windows - This post is about entering education expenses.

In the prior years, TurboTax allowed us to enter "Other Education Expenses" (in the student's tax return). See attached screenshot, specifically the red box.

In the current 2025 product, there is nowhere in the step-by-step interview section to enter other qualified education expenses. They changed something that worked and was not broken. Now the only way I know is to go to the forms view and enter it in "Student Info Wk" form.

Q1: Is there a trick to do this in the step-by-step interview besides going into the forms view?

Even then, the result is a hit & miss where it erases the expense data sporadically. I discovered that while in the "Student Info Wk" form, you have to click on the gray QuickZoom box to go to the "People Wks" form and reenter the additional expenses there. (why? the two forms look almost identical!)

Q2: Does anyone know if the TT team is aware of this and has any plans to fix it? That would be good to know to set our expectation to wait to move forward.

(also FYI, in the 1099-Q if anyone selects box 4b for "QTP to Roth IRA", the forms produce an error. Another bug but that is a different topic)

Here is the screenshot of the 2024 TT that worked great, where the red box area is now missing from 2025 TT.

EDITED 2/2/26: Updated the image to cover another personal information I had missed before.

[BK2000]

Adding to my own post for everyone's benefit. This is the workaround I found to enter other education expenses. You go to the forms view, "Student Info Wk" form. In there above the table at the bottom, select the gray QuickZoom box to go to the "People Wks" form and enter any additional expenses as seen in the attached image.

If someone thinks this is not the correct workaround or approach, I would appreciate your response. Thank you.

[RogerD1]

Yes, there is an area to enter expenses related to education in the interview.

In Deductions & Credits under Education, click on Start or Update by Expenses and Scholarships (Form 1098-T).

If you have already entered the 1098-T for the education expenses, click the pencil icon for the Student on the Education Summary page.

A question will appear next about working on an Associate, Bachelor's or Graduate degree.  Click Continue once that has been answered.

The next screen will say "Did [name] have any of these common situations in 2025?".  Click on the top box "Had education expenses other than tuition", then Continue.

Once you have other information entered, you will get to a summary page titled"[name]'s schools" - click Continue.

The next screen will allow you to enter the education expenses.

I would recommend this way of entering the data rather than going through Forms mode.

[BK2000]

@RogerD1 

Thank you very much for your reply. You missed the the issue unfortunately where we cannot enter OTHER qualified education expenses - and please hear me again.

We are aware of your suggestion, where we can enter two elements of the education expenses: The required books & materials from the school, and the optional books & materials from the school. This is what it looks like now in TT 2025, and we are in agreement up to here:

But here is the issue: The OTHER qualified expenses such as materials NOT required to be purchased from the school, Room & board, Computer & software, Special needs expenses etc are missing unfortunately! TT redesigned this section and removed those options. And the only way to enter them is via the forms. Which is what so many new posts in the past few days are complaining about. Based on what I have read so far even the non-employee experts/champs agree on the shortcoming of this omission. This is the image of what was in last year's TT 2024 and is now missing in TT2025 (shown in the red outline):

In summary, currently as is in the redesigned TT 2025, the user has no way of entering OTHER qualified education expenses in the interview view - forced to enter the forms view. This is a major redesign flaw. I hope this clarifies it. Thank you

[RogerD1]

In the section "time to enter [name]'s education expenses", the top line is for entering expenses where books and materials were required to be purchased from the school.  The bottom line for Optional books and materials is for those items not purchased from the school.  Materials such as computers and software can qualify in either of these categories, but only if the purchase of these items is required by the school as a condition of enrollment.

You can make the entries in Forms mode for Room and board, special needs expenses, etc., but do notice that those expenses do not carry over to the next two columns for either the Lifetime Learning Credit or the American Opportunity Credit.  This would be the reason why questions regarding these expenses do not appear in this section.

[BK2000]

@RogerD1 

You just wrote: 

The bottom line for Optional books and materials is for those items not purchased from the school.

I encourage you to read the bottom line again: It does not say what you wrote at all - does not say "not purchased from the school"! It says "Optional books and material from the school". Here is the image again for you to reacquaint yourself with the verbiage (I apologize if this sounds sarcastic, not meant to be, rather seems like you haven't carefully read the the 'redesigned' displayed text)

You wrote:

but do notice that those expenses do not carry over to the next two columns for either the Lifetime Learning Credit or the American Opportunity Credit. This would be the reason why questions regarding these expenses do not appear in this section.

I understand. But why is TT deciding what I can and cannot enter and omit it from the section. Just give me the choice to enter all of my expenses like it did last year in the interview section (instead of forcing me into the forms view). Many less-sophisticated users are left confused not knowing where to enter them as it still makes a $ difference in the tax return.

Thank you again for responding.

[user17700572237]

Unless users are prompted to enter Room and Board and similar expenses, many people will forget to enter this info and thus pay more in taxes than they need to.  Of course, if people want to fill out IRS forms manually, they  wouldn't have purchased TurboTax. Please bring back the feature from 2024 and prior versions of TT. 

[paulmpetersen1965]

I don’t think you can get into forms mode with the online version. Is that correct? This is really stupid that you cannot add room and board using the interview. You could do it last year. I have the online version and from what I am reading I cannot add room and board and so will have to overpay my taxes as I cannot offset my 1099-Q. It seems I will not be paying for and using TurboTax this year. I assume TaxAct or H&R Block online versions do not travel this problem. Will let you know once I switch over

[BK2000]

Everyone, I am going to make an update to one of the images I attached before, to more accurately show what data entry rows TT removed from the 2025 product, compared to 2024. The red rectangle indicates what has been removed in TT 2025. Of course the 2025 is redesigned as well. But the focus is on what we can no longer enter in the interview screens compared to 2024, in the Windows desktop version, hence forced to go into forms.