Of course the retirement can all be protected - it’s up to the schools to decide what to consider. FAFSA protects it all except the funds that would be income in the prior year. Private schools can decide to do the same thing and ignore all retirement funds, home equity, and anything else. I don’t know of any schools that impute income and decide that a parent shouldn’t have retired early or shouldn’t be a public defender but should be a corporate lawyer and make more money. I worked on a divorce case many years ago where the court did impute income. The ex was a state supreme court judge, making $50k (long time ago). Court said, “that’s nice, but you could be making $200k as a partner in a firm and your child support will be based on that.” (this guy was a jerk and there was no question the court was punishing him for past bad acts of not paying anything, but it is possible to impute income if it makes things fair).
There just aren’t that many outliers to make it worth worrying about. Not many people retire at 50 to get college benefits, AND can live off $25k in retirement funds per year. If you can, you’ve benefited from the system. Take your FA and be happy.