Great point! 
Our baseline is the COA at our local uni where she can commute: $7k per year including the published automatic scholarships (including her cost of commute). They have a guaranteed graduate in 4- even for engineering. There is a possibility that she could be awarded other departmental scholarships, but I don’t include those because they are not a sure thing. I realize that unless she is awarded a tuition+ scholarship at most schools, the COA is going to be greater than that. We and she are approaching this decision practically. We are willing to spend more than that, if there is a compelling reason, but if she can locate opportunities where there’s the potential to be awarded at that level with her chosen major, we’d like to hear about them.
We’re in Idaho, so WUE schools would potentially be 150% OOS tuition but from what I’ve found so far, WUE is not always stackable with merit scholarships.
Thanks!