Most Americans need some serious help with college bills, and Congress has devised a couple of significant programs of college tax credits to provide that help.

Hope credit. This is the more valuable of the two. It permits you to subtract from your tax bill part of the cost of tuition and fees (but not room and board). The credit applies only to the first two years of college, but you can claim it for as many of your children as qualify.

Lifetime Learning credit. This takes up where the Hope credits leave off. The Lifetime Learning credit is a percent of some higher-education costs. You simply lop the qualifying amount off your tax bill. It can be used after freshman and sophomore years, and you can even use it for yourself if you return to school. But you may claim only one Lifetime Learning credit per year, regardless of how many students in your household qualify for it.

If your adjusted gross income exceeds IRS limits, you begin to lose your eligibility for the Hope and Lifetime Learning credits. Careful timing of your tuition payments can maximize the benefit.

Say, for instance, that your child's final college semester begins in January. If you pay the bill in late December, you'd have no qualifying payments in the following year. Postponing the payments until January buys you an extra Lifetime Learning credit. See IRS Publication 970 for current amount of credits and income limits.

MORE: Kiplinger.com | The Basics of Money | Getting Started

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