Qualified Tuition Programs: Which Education Expenses Qualify: Education Tax Benefits (2025 IRS Guide)

This guide covers “Qualified Tuition Programs: Which Education Expenses Qualify” within education tax benefits. The following material presents the IRS treatment of this topic, including the qualifications, exceptions, and examples in the source section. Read the rules alongside the facts of your own situation before deciding what to report, deduct, or document.

Adapted from Publication 970 (2025), Tax Benefits for Education, published by the Internal Revenue Service. This guide retains the source edition’s years, amounts, deadlines, and examples. It is guidance for that edition, not a statement that the same figures apply to every tax year.

Context for these rules

A QTP is a program set up to allow you to either prepay or contribute to an account established for paying a student’s qualified education expenses at an eligible educational institution. QTPs can be established and maintained by states (or agencies or instrumentalities of a state) and eligible educational institutions. The program must meet certain requirements. Your state government or the eligible educational institution in which you are interested can tell you whether or not they participate in a QTP.

Qualified Tuition Programs: Which Education Expenses Qualify

Generally, these are expenses required for the enrollment or attendance of the designated beneficiary at an eligible educational institution. For purposes of QTPs, the expenses can be either qualified higher education expenses, qualified elementary and secondary education expenses, or post secondary credential expenses.

Designated beneficiary.

The designated beneficiary is generally the student (or future student) for whom the QTP is intended to provide benefits. The designated beneficiary can be changed after participation in the QTP begins. If a state or local government or certain tax-exempt organizations purchase an interest in a QTP as part of a scholarship program, the designated beneficiary is the person who receives the interest as a scholarship.

Eligible Educational Institution

For purposes of a QTP, an eligible educational institution can be either an eligible postsecondary school or an eligible elementary or secondary school.

Eligible postsecondary school.

An eligible postsecondary school is generally any accredited public, nonprofit, or proprietary (privately owned profit-making) college, university, vocational school, or other postsecondary educational institution. Also, the institution must be eligible to participate in a student aid program administered by the U.S. Department of Education. Virtually all accredited postsecondary institutions meet this definition. The educational institution should be able to tell you if it’s an eligible educational institution.

An eligible educational institution also includes certain educational institutions located outside the United States that are eligible to participate in a student aid program administered by the U.S. Department of Education.

Eligible elementary or secondary school.

An eligible elementary or secondary school is any public, private, or religious school that provides elementary or secondary education (kindergarten through grade 12), as determined under state law.

Qualified Higher Education Expenses

These are expenses related to enrollment or attendance at an eligible postsecondary school. As shown in the following list, to be qualified, some of the expenses must be required by the school and some must be incurred by students who are enrolled at least half-time, defined later.

1. The following expenses must be required for enrollment or attendance of a designated beneficiary at an eligible postsecondary school.

   1. Tuition and fees.

   2. Books, supplies, and equipment.

2. Expenses for special needs services needed by a special needs beneficiary must be incurred in connection with enrollment or attendance at an eligible postsecondary school.

3. Expenses for room and board must be incurred by students who are enrolled at least half-time (defined later).

   The expense for room and board qualifies only to the extent that it isn’t more than the greater of the following two amounts.

   1. The allowance for room and board, as determined by the school, that was included in the cost of attendance (for federal financial aid purposes) for a particular academic period and living arrangement of the student.

   2. The actual amount charged if the student is residing in housing owned or operated by the school.

   You may need to contact the eligible educational institution for qualified room and board costs.

4. The purchase of computer or peripheral equipment, computer software, or Internet access and related services, if it’s to be used primarily by the beneficiary during any of the years the beneficiary is enrolled at an eligible postsecondary school. (This doesn’t include expenses for computer software for sports, games, or hobbies unless the software is predominantly educational in nature.)

5. The expenses for fees, books, supplies, and equipment required for the designated beneficiary’s participation in an apprenticeship program registered and certified with the Secretary of Labor under section 1 of the National Apprenticeship Act.

6. No more than $10,000 paid as principal or interest on qualified student loans of the designated beneficiary or the designated beneficiary’s sibling. A sibling includes a brother, sister, stepbrother, or stepsister. For purposes of the $10,000 limitation, amounts treated as a qualified higher education expense for the loans of a sibling are taken into account for the sibling and not for the designated beneficiary. You can’t deduct as interest on a student loan (see chapter 4) any amount paid from a distribution of earnings from a QTP after 2018 to the extent the earnings are treated as tax free because they were used to pay student loan interest.

Half-time student.

A student is enrolled “at least half-time” if the student is enrolled for at least half the full-time academic workload for the course of study the student is pursuing, as determined under the standards of the school where the student is enrolled.

Qualified Elementary and Secondary Education Expenses

These are expenses related to enrollment or attendance at or for students enrolled at or attending an eligible elementary and secondary school.

1. Tuition.

2. Curriculum and curricular materials.

3. Books or other instructional materials.

4. Online educational materials.

5. Tuition for tutoring or educational classes outside of the home, including at a tutoring facility, but only if the tutor or instructor is not related to the student, and

   1. is licensed as a teacher in any state,

   2. has taught at an eligible education institution, or

   3. is a subject matter expert in the relevant subject.

6. Fees for nationally standardized norm-referenced achievement test, an advance placement examination, or any examinations related to college or university admission.

7. Fees for dual enrollment in an institution of higher education.

8. Educational therapies for students with disabilities provided by a licensed or accredited practitioner or provider, including occupational, behavioral, physical, and speech-language therapies.

These are expenses for no more than $10,000 of tuition, incurred by a designated beneficiary, in connection with enrollment or attendance at or for students enrolled at or attending an eligible elementary or secondary school.

Qualified Postsecondary Credentialing Expenses

These are expenses related to the enrollment or attendance of a designated beneficiary in a recognized postsecondary credential program.

1. The following expenses must be required for enrollment or attendance of a designated beneficiary in a recognized postsecondary credential program, or any other expense incurred in connection with enrollment in or attendance at an eligible education institution (defined under Eligible Educational Institution, earlier).

   1. Tuition and fees.

   2. Books, supplies, and equipment.

   3. Expenses related to enrollment or attendance at an eligible educational institution.

2. Fees for testing if the testing is required to obtain or maintain a recognized postsecondary credential.

3. Fees for continuing education if the education is required to maintain a recognized postsecondary credential.

Recognized postsecondary credential program.

A recognized postsecondary credential program is any program to obtain a recognized postsecondary credential if it meets the following:

1. The program is included on a State list prepared under section 122(d) of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act.

2. The program is listed in the public directory of the Web Enabled Approval Management System (WEAMS) of the Veterans Benefits Administration.

3. The examination (developed or administered by an organization widely recognized as providing reputable credentials in the occupation) is required to obtain or maintain the credential and the organization recognizes the program as providing training or education which prepares individuals to take the examination; or

4. The program is identified by the Secretary of Treasury as being a reputable program for obtaining a recognized postsecondary credential.

Recognized postsecondary credential.

A recognized postsecondary credential is:

1. A postsecondary employment credential that is industry recognized and is

   1. Any postsecondary employment credential issued by a program that is accredited by the Institute for Credentialing Excellence, the National Commission on Certifying Agencies, or the American National Standards Institute,

   2. Any postsecondary employment credential that is included in the Credentialing Opportunities On-Line (COOL) directory of credentialing programs maintained by the Department of Defense or by any branch of the Armed Forces, or

   3. Any postsecondary employment credential identified by the Secretary of Treasury as being industry recognized.

2. Any certificate of completion of an apprenticeship that is registered and certified by the Secretary of Labor under the National Apprenticeship Act,

3. Any occupational or professional license issued or recognized by a State of the Federal Government, and any certification that satisfies a condition for obtaining the license, and

4. Any recognized postsecondary credential as defined in section 3(52) of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act provided through a program described in paragraph (2)(A).

Using the guidance

Keep the documents that establish the dates, amounts, and circumstances described above. References to other chapters, forms, worksheets, or earlier and later sections refer to the linked IRS publication. Check the full publication and its updates before relying on a rule for a different tax year or a situation not addressed here.

Sources and further reading

• Publication 970 (2025), Tax Benefits for Education: Qualified Tuition Program (QTP) — What Is a QTP? — Qualified Education Expenses — Internal Revenue Service; 2025 edition.

The cited U.S. government text is in the public domain. Source accessed October 28, 2026. Fynoptic has organized this material for educational use and is independent of, and not endorsed by, the IRS.