S15 has tuition (merit) covered. He had about $1500 in fees, which we claimed on our taxes for AOTC. The next year he received a scholarship for $1500; it was made directly to the public school. And while we didnt pay the fees out of pocket, we didnt get to claim those expenses. It was a wash. like someone said above, it was a line on a resume.
i kept thinking like you - how could that $1500 scholarship best helped my son? It would have been great if it could have gone for supplies or room and board instead of directly going to the school. I wish the scholarship donor could have contacted us and asked what best suited his needs and would have actually helped him.
so that would be hard, but if you could contact each winner on a case-by-case basis and see where the need is – perhaps it might help more than sending it to a school, and reducing need grants or off-setting the AOTC credits. It’s very very thoughtful of you to give scholarships and think about it all!