Form 8880 Help Please

In doing my own taxes I am troubled about form 8880.

The instructions say that the deduction is to encourage low and middle income people to contribute to their retirement accounts. That's me. I am 42 years old and work full time in a factory but I am also a full time student at the local university studying accounting. I'm almost done but for now am a full time student with 12 hours.

The deduction for me amounts to a credit of a little over $500 but it seems that I am excluded from taking it because I am a full-time student.

It seems rediculous to me that I would get an additional $500 refund if I had only 9 hours (part time) instead of 12 hours (full-time)

Can anyone explain this to me or is there no explanation?

Ken

Like I said before I have been really troubled by this so I looked it up in the actual IRS code and found the following:

(1) In general The term ?eligible individual? means any individual if such individual has attained the age of 18 as of the close of the taxable year.

(2) Dependents and full-time students not eligible The term ?eligible individual? shall not include?

(A) any individual with respect to whom a deduction under section 151 is allowed to another taxpayer for a taxable year beginning in the calendar year in which such individual?s taxable year begins, and

(B) any individual who is a student (as defined in section 152 (f)(2)).

I think the keyword in the section is AND. I would love it if a CPA would respond to this to say if I am wrong or right in my interpretation of the code. I think a person is ineligible if they can be claimed by another person AND are a fulltime student.

I think if the code had said OR it would be a different story.

Please respond if you have an opinion on this. At this point I am pretty confident that I can take the deduction. In fact I had a tax service do my taxes for the last several years and may go back and file an ammemded return for the last couple years if it would have made a difference.

Am I wrong in this?

Ken