LPI certification training

So I've been looking into Linux certs recently and LPI keeps coming up. Is that a good cert to get? How should I study for it?

Note that I'm a poor college kid, so spending money on training is not something I can do right now. Does anybody have any suggestions? Stories? Experiences that might help me? What distro should I use to study on? Is this even the right first cert to get?

Thanks in advance for any advice

EDIT: autocorrect