I am entering my total qualified student loans under state taxes and the maximum value it shows me is way less than the amount I need to put in. How is this?

It's just the rule for the credit - there is only a max of $5,000 original loan amount allowed to be used for the calculation.  If you have more, you just enter $5,000.  You won’t be able to use the rest as the maximum amount of the actual credit is only $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