A couple of things.
- Terrific that you have saved some money...or been given some money. Perhaps using some of that for college is a good thing.
- You could put the money into a 529 account. That way it will be assessed for FAFSA purposes as a parent asset at 5.6% of its value. But remember..529 accounts also have to be used for educational purposes.
- The amount of assets are reported as of the day of filing the FAFSA. So...if you have any necessary purchases (like a new computer for school use), you could buy it before you file your FAFSA and the amount in your account will be reduced.
- As pointed out by @romanigypsyeyes this might be important IF your family is a low income family. However, of your family is not lower income...it might not matter much anyway in terms of financial aid received. Need based aid is largely driven by parent income...plus most schools don't meet full need anyway.
- If your parents have regular w-2 earnings from a job...not self employed, don't own real estate in addition to your primary home...run the net price calculator on the colleges' websites that you are interested in. See what your net cost would be approximately.
You can do this with and without that $20,000 in savings to see how it affects your net costs.