New BS Degree

Your wife might be eligible to claim the American Opportunity Credit for 2019 as long as she did not complete 4 years of post-secondary education before 2019. (Or she would be eligible for the credit for 2020 if she did not complete 4 years of post-secondary education before 2020.) But the American Opportunity Credit can only be claimed 4 times for a particular student. If your wife's parents claimed the Hope Credit when they paid for her community college, each tax year that they claimed the Hope Credit counts as one year of claiming the American Opportunity Credit. So if they claimed the Hope Credit 3 times, your wife can only claim the American Opportunity Credit once.