How do I determine how much money my family is expected to contribute?
I am going to guess that it means your EFC is $2,357. That is how much money your parents should be able to contribute in a year.
Go to each college’s net price calculator and fill it in.
The EFC will be the minimum you are expected to pay at many schools.
You should be able to get a Pell Grant of ($5800-$2357) about $3500, maybe a state grant if you are attending an instate school. You can take a direct loan of $5500 as a freshman.
The EFC is not really the amount your parents are expected to pay. At a meets full need school, yes, most other costs should be covered but those schools are few and far between. If you go to a school that costs $20k, you’d get the Pell grant of about $3500, you could take a $5500 loan, and for the rest, the school might give you a need based grant, a merit scholarship, SEOG, work study, Perkins loans, or it might ‘gap’ you, which means that while it recognizes you have more need, the school has no more money to give you. Your parents can borrow it if they need to.
The EFC really just sets the amount the federal government will give you for a Pell grant.