Anecdotal, but absolutely. I knew several people in undergrad whose parents did things like put assets into trust funds that would have been invisible to the limited means that colleges have at their disposal to audit. One friend specifically told me how his parents transferred ownership of their house to a blind trust they had established under a family member’s name and “rented” it back. This put their total assets well under the total amount to qualify for (a surprising amount of) financial aid. I’ve also heard of parents deferring a portion of their income for the four years their kid was in school, and receiving the deferred income in the years after their kid graduated.

Top schools these days give substantial financial aid to families whose incomes are well into the six figures (and assets into the seven figures), so it makes total sense that families just above the cutoff would use some dirty tricks to qualify.