Student Loan Tax Deduction...

Hello all,
I know that most of my posts are about techy stuff but today I have decided to rant a little bit regarding student loans.

So recently I was able to do my taxes with TurboTax and found the process very straightforward. I found out that 1098 forms show how much interest has been paid on those accounts and that the interest is tax deductible (or a tax writeoff or something like that). I thought this was fantastic because I have over $140,000 in student debt and I had paid about $12,000 in interest for 2017. I thought this may mean that I would get a huge tax return and I would be able to put more towards student loans or have a nice chunk back for a down-payment on a house or something like that.

I then found out some terrible news... I could only claim $2,500 of that interest...

This has ticked me off and now I am basically venting because for 2018 I will most likely pay 3x what I payed in 2017 because my wife also has student loans and I didn't start paying my loans until August. What I don't understand is how money used for student loans can be counted towards your income and why the entire interest can't be tax deducted. Something like that would allow Americans to catch up and could possibly help with paying off their loans without the need for forgiveness.

I make decent money at my job but it sucks living paycheck to paycheck only because of student loans. If I did not have any student loans I would most likely already be purchasing a house and possibly have a new car (not to mention other desirable things). I think if the cost of school will continue to be this insane, I may need to have my kids working in high school in order to start saving up for college if that is a path they would like to take...

Sorry for my rant. Feel free to leave your stresses via comments or just comment about what I am talking about and we can chat about it.

Good luck out there,
V