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If you’re hoping to receive a substantial amount of need-based financial aid for college or graduate school, your Expected Family Contribution (EFC) will be one of the most important numbers you’ll ever see. (Need-based financial aid is financial aid you receive because you couldn’t afford college otherwise; “merit-based” financial aid doesn’t depend on your family’s financial situation, but is based on other factors like your academic, athletic, artistic, or service achievements.)

After you’re admitted to your dream school, a complex set of gears grind into action. First, each school calculates a “cost of attendance” (COA) — a number that includes tuition, room and board, and other anticipated costs like books, transportation, technology fees, and the like.

Then, based on the information you’ve provided about your family’s income and assets, the federal government and the college between them will come up with the EFC. That’s the money that you and your family are expected to pay towards your education during the next school year.

Subtract the EFC from the COA and you get the other number you’re really interested in: how much financial aid you’ll be eligible for from the government, your school, or both. (Just watch out — different schools might provide a different mix of loans vs. grants to meet that financial need, so compare financial aid offers.)

So, where exactly does the EFC number come from? It’s calculated different ways by the federal government and by some schools, but it’s all based on your reporting of: your family assets (the value of your savings or investment accounts [excluding retirement accounts] if you have them) and, sometimes, your home or business assets; your family income; the size of your family; and the number of dependent children enrolled in college.

None of these formulas, however, take debt (credit card, mortgage, or preexisting student loans) into account; they are entirely based on assets and income. And they are heavily weighted towards income, meaning that a high-income family with few assets may well end up with a higher EFC than a lower-income family that owns a house and has substantial savings.

Why should college be free? From making college more accessible to needing to find more funding, here the pros and cons of tuition-free college.