Financial aid decisions made in grades 9-11 shape FAFSA eligibility more than anything you do senior year. How savings are structured, which accounts you use, and whose name they're in all matter. By senior year, the financial picture is locked in.
Treating financial aid as a senior year problem is like treating your retirement savings as a 60s problem—things you'll do when you turn 60. Planning happens long before the paperwork. Decisions you and your family make in 9th, 10th, and 11th grade, how you structure savings, which accounts money sit in, whether a grandparent opens a savings account in the student's name or a parent's name can meaningfully affect your aid eligibility years later when the FAFSA finally asks all about it. By senior year, a lot of that financial picture is already locked in. You're filling out a form about decisions you already made, not decisions you're about to make.
