Savings from Year 1 at the current institution will help, but yes, that’s the trade off. Hence the question, there may be a school that is a better fit, but how much better and what’s it worth?
There is one T10 school that was a waitlist school that invited them to apply again (but not sure what that’s really worth, maybe just to increase their application numbers, who knows?) . Haven’t checked with the other “yes” schools yet as they aren’t sure if that is what they want this time around.
Also, thank you for the suggestions and the links. We are studying them.