Last year I lived abroad and had very little income so I took the opportunity to convert the bulk of my Traditional IRA into a Roth. I thought that would count as a direct contribution under the five year rule but I guess I was wrong. Now I want to use that money for graduate school but I don't want to be taxed on it yet again.

Is there any way that I could use a federal student loan to defer some of my qualified education expenses? In other words, since that loan was used exclusively to pay for university, could I later justify that I was still paying qualified education expenses by making payments on that loan, and so the distribution should be without penalty?