Getting an estimate of your Expected Family Contribution is really helpful, and it's pretty easy. The Department of Education's unfortunately-named Student Aid Estimator will calculate the FAFSA's EFC for you with a few data inputs; the College Board offers one for the CSS Profile. While each has its limitations-- in particular, the Profile's EFC estimator doesn't account for the myriad ways in which different schools treat assets like home equity-- they can be very helpful in determining whether you're a candidate for need-based aid or whether you should focus on colleges offering merit scholarships.

"Unfortunately-named" is the best adjective to describe the Student Aid Estimator because it does not tell you how much aid you'll get or whether that aid will be grants or loans. That's because colleges are under no obligation to meet your financial need, and even if they do meet your need, many will use loans and work-study to do so. And that's where net cost comes in.

The net cost to attend a college is what a college expects you to actually pay to attend. It may or may not have anything to do with your EFC, and that's why it's so important to estimate this in advance. Fortunately colleges are required to help you out with this: Every college that participates in Title IV federal aid programs-- which basically means any college where you could take out a federal direct student loan to attend-- is required to have a net price calculator on its website. The calculator will tell you what students like you received in grants and scholarships in the previous academic year. And as you'll see, those numbers will be all over the map but they're likely to be much more accurate indicators of what you'll pay than is your EFC.

The purpose of a net price calculator is to "allow students to calculate an estimated net price of attendance at an institution (defined as cost of attendance minus grant and scholarship aid) based on what similar students paid in a previous year." That means the output can only show grant aid, not loans or work-study. The Department of Education has a net price calculator that colleges can use, and colleges can also create their own as long as they conform to Department of Education rules. These include:

• Inputs must include "Data elements to approximate the student's Expected Family Contribution (EFC), such as income, number in family, and dependency status or factors that estimate dependency status." These inputs can be based on either Federal (FAFSA) or Institutional (CSS Profile) methodology.

• Outputs must include estimated total cost of attendance including tuition and fees, room and board, books and supplies and other expenses (personal expenses, transportation, etc.); estimated total grant aid; estimated net price after grant aid; the percent of full-time, first-time students that received grant aid; and any caveats and disclaimers.

The typical net price calculator, using the Department of Education template, matches the EFC calculated from the net price calculator inputs with the college's median grant package for students with that EFC or an EFC range including the student's EFC. So if the net price calculator says your EFC is $27,000, you might see the median package for students whose EFCs range from $25,000 to $30,000. But the range could be narrower or broader.

Colleges can include questions about a student's GPA if they offer merit aid, or other data points that the college uses to calculate awards. Many colleges that only use the FAFSA, for example, also require students to submit supplemental financial aid info, be it on parent-owned businesses or income and asset information from a non-custodial parent; this can be incorporated into the net price calculator.

Some net price calculators are very specific and detailed, even listing specific scholarships or grants the student might get. This can be particularly helpful because you can go back to the college's financial aid website and verify whether those scholarships are automatically granted or require an application, and manage tasks and expectations accordingly. Similarly, since many colleges don't include scholarships that require applications on their net price calculators, it's worth taking a look at what other dollars might be available and the process for getting them.

Net price calculators don't guarantee that you'll get the aid package they show, but they will give you a sense of what a specific college is likely to cost. My daughter's actual financial aid awards were all within $2,000 of what the net price calculators estimated, but that may or may not be indicative of their accuracy in general. And perhaps more importantly, net price calculators helped us cross a number of colleges off our list by showing that there wasn't a path to make them fit our budget.

So yes, get an estimate of your EFC. But more importantly, do net price calculators, ideally before you start applying to colleges.