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What city/state are you in? A lot of times you can find smaller companies who will hire you at a discounted hourly rate to intern/work for 2-3 months while you learn and gain experience. This is how I got started; a lot of times smaller companies can't afford someone with vast amounts of experience and are only looking for someone with a good attitude and ambition. Then later down the road when you are a more valuable asset they will renegociate your salary with you.

How do you know you will not retain anything from these types of classes? Unless you have done them I don't think you should be knocking them. I've been and done a few courses at Sun Microsystems. Now they are only short courses that you do there as you have to have a certain knowledge to start with and also with some courses you can not do them without doing the easy ones first ;-)

I don't sit Sun courses any more (new job and work not paying for them) but I am going to get certs still.

You don't need to sit a course for a Linux cert or Unix for that matter.

Ok here is what you do for Linux certs. Look at what test you want to do. Then see what books they recommend for study guides. Install Linux. Read books. Book the test for the cert. Go home and stufy like hell. Sit the test. Pass test. Get you cert.

No need for a few months in a class room.

as far as not having any $$$ i can relate.. but at your age you can get student loans from the government.. or even grants. do u still live with your parents.? if you do then ur parents can get student loans. if you dont live with a parent then you can most likely get a grant. if you live in the USA try salliemae.com
its a major loan company. very very low interest. also, you can ask for forbarence while in school so u arent making payments till your outta school