1098-T forms are notoriously unreliable.  Sure, they're probably fine if they say $40,000 Tuition paid and $5,000 of Scholarship (in which case the parents are probably over the AGI limit for credits anyway).  But for fringe cases like this I'd suggest you get the financial transcripts for both years (some call it a bursar's statement).

It's possible that there was a payment in 2024 that the college arbitrarily applied to room & board so it doesn't show up in the Tuition box.  The rules are very taxpayer friendly on this, you can allocate your payments in a way that gives you the best tax result, not necessarily just how the college computers want to apply them.  You just can't double-dip.

So if you can go back and allocate the 2023 payment to room & board first (instead of tuition), does that free up enough unpaid tuition to carryover to 2024 and absorb the scholarship?

And, I should have started with this, does it matter if the student has some more income or does it just get absorbed by the standard deduction anyway?

Rick