Fees that are qualified educ expenses?

Paying for College
1

<p>I'm trying to do some tax planning so trying to get a general estimate of how much higher education tax credit we might be able to take.
(I was shocked at the amount of "fees" on this first bill, and since they mostly say "fall" I'm guessing we see them again in the spring. Sheesh!)
I can guess that any fee that references housing or dining in the name would not count as a qualified education expense, but what do you all think about the rest of these? They were ALL were automatically put on our account, whether D uses the service or not:</p>

<p>Athletic Fee (charged whether you ever attend a game or participate or not)
Bus Fee
Health Fee (prob not QEE?)
Library Fee
Non-Refundable Orientation Fee (orientation was required)
Rec Sports Fee (whether you play or not)
Student Activity Fee
Student Services Fee
Supplemental PCOB Fee (have no clue what this is)
Technology Fee
Software Fee (required to buy and use it)</p>

<p>(And in addition to the 11 above, there is Dining non-refundable fee, Housing base rate fee, Housing non-refundable base rate fee. Geez, 14 fees just for the fall!)</p>

2

<p>I would ask the college. The student accounts department, or someplace like that, would probably have gone through the list in order to determine what to include on the Form 1098-T. That is a long list!</p>

3

<p>Some schools lump all the fees together into one line item on the bill, some list all the fees. From IRS Pub 970 the question to ask is whether the fee is required of all students in a course of study as a condition of enrollment.</p>

<p>Could your daughter still enroll without paying any of those fees?</p>

<p>The health fee likely supports the student health center and in most cases would be required of all students and would be QEE. At many schools students can ride city buses with their student ID and the bus fee likely supports that.</p>

<p>Don’t know what PCOB is either but they all look like QEE to me if required to be paid by all students as a condition of enrollment.</p>