Well, contributing that in 2022 will protect that amount from assets, but the 61k will still be counted as income because the FA formulas add 401k contributions back as income.
Assets are usually assessed at around 5%, while income can be assessed at up to 47%, depending on the school and the income level. The time to funnel income to 401ks is prior to the base year. But that requires that people plan ahead of time, and if they don’t know they are supposed to, then they miss that opportunity.
Edited to add – I clicked the link and saw that the 61k is referring to the employer contribution. I agree with you that the employer contribution is excluded from FA calculations, but it is limited to 25% of salary, so the OP would have to earn approxiately $250k to contribute 61k as an employer,