How to Deal with The Dollars in Kid's College Decision Process

I agree with OP’s basic plan. It is very close to what we started with. Now that we are close to a decision with DS1 we also now have a plan for how to set the “shopping budget” for DC2 when we start that process in 2 years. Whatever % that DS1’s COA goes up over his 4 years of UG will be multiplied by what his shopping budget was. All other parameters will be the same. Both will be expected to work for spending money and books.