I heard of a number of colleges that are wrongly putting the NET amount of tuition in Box 1, rather than the total.  I suspect it is from colleges that were using Box 2 and are completely clueless how to fill out a 1098-T.

At any rate, I agree with the others that you should NOT rely on the 1098-T, you need to ask the student to get a printout of the financial account from the college that shows precisely what was paid.