Enter the total amount of qualified student loans used to pay for postsecondary education. What is this q asking? If it's total $ loaned, can't enter an amount > $5000

[AnthonyC]

It's asking for the total original amounts of the loans - but the maximum you can put is $5,000 (even if you have more)

And, its because that is actually the rule for the credit - there is only a max of $5,000 original loan amount allowed to be used for the calculation.  The maximum amount of the actual credit is $500.  If you take a look at the form and follow the calculations, then you can see Line 11 mentions the $5,000 maximum directly on the form.

https://www.revenue.state.mn.us/Forms_and_Instructions/m1slc_18.pdf