"I have visual studio 6.0 and i am learning C++ on it. Is there a big difference between The visual studio.net?"
Yes.
"Basically what i am asking is, if i learn C++ on visual studio 6.0 am i wasting my time because there is a visual studio.net out?"
Yes.
"All i have is visual studio 6.0 right now and i am limited on funds. WOuld i benifit from learning on visual studio 6.0?"
You would benefit from learning on VS6, but you would benefit significantly more from learning on .NET.
"What is the difference between the two?"
C++ was revised in 1998 and 1999. The changes were significant. VS6 supports old C++. VS.NET supports new "modern" C++. So if you use VS6, you're locked out of modern C++.
If you try to use anything like advanced templates and generic programming in VS6, it won't work. Guess what people will tell you: upgrade. Try using third party libraries that work with modern C++, and guess what they tell you: upgrade.
So you want a modern C++ compiler. There's two major compilers out there. Gcc and VC++. GCC has a windows port called MinGW and VC++ comes with Visual Studio .NET. MinGW is free by the way. VC++ is not, but Microsoft released a scaled down version for free, called Visual C++ Express Edition.
MinGW: http://www.mingw.org/download.shtml
Direct link to MinGW: http://prdownloads.sf.net/mingw/MinGW-5.0.2.exe?download
Visual C++ Express: http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/visualc/
IDEs:
Code Blocks: http://www.codeblocks.org/
wxDev-C++: http://wxdsgn.sourceforge.net/