Can I invest some of my scholarship money into a Roth IRA?

Question

I'm not working right now. I'll start working on campus around August, but I won't have enough income really to invest in anything. I was thinking about investing a little bit of my scholarship money into a Roth IRA. My scholarship for fall is around $1400 and I'll be getting another $1500 or so in student loans. That doesn't really even cover all my costs--tution, books, etc--so I don't know if I will really have to extra money to invest, but if I do it will only be around $300. Would this be legal?

Answer 1

You have to have earned income to invest in an IRA.

Answer 2

In addition to that it would probably violate the terms of your scholarship, which might cost you the scholarship if it was ever found out.

Once you start working, I'd look to put some of that $ aside.