Two parts of your financial situation will contribute to "expected family contribution": Your asset and your income.
You asset include your non-retirement investment and bank saving. House equity will be considered by private college,but not by public college. So your big mistake is that you did not save into your retirement account in the past. Any asset in retirement account will have no effect on your EFC.
For income part, whether you save into your retirement or not, does not matter. The college will ask your AGI and the amount you put into your retirement account for the year. So both will be added together for EFC calculation. On income part, whether you put into retirement account or not, it is the same. The only trick is that if your AGI is under 50K,then your asset will be automatically considered as zero. You sounded not like this situation.
