How interesting. Either way, that gives me some hope, as my eldest is a Philosophy and CS major 
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It’s great to learn all this about TCD, thank you!
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I’m talking about the campuses. UChicago has more grass and trees than the Columbia campus.
Ultimately, we are nitpicking – they are both great. The biggest thing to me is that she’ll be splitting time at Trinity and Columbia, or spending all four years at Chicago. I can’t be clearer in my personal belief that Chicago and Columbia are extremely tight peers academically. Her choice, if cost is the same or very close, literally comes down to setting and whether she can easily make new friends at Columbia (vs. spending all four years with her people at UChicago.)
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Ahhh, you’re absolutely correct about U Chicago being the greener campus. Sorry about my confusion.
I’m 100% on board with everything else you said. My vote is also for U Chicago in this situation for all the same reasons as you. An easy call in my mind.
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Three years ago my daughter was accepted to the Sciences Po/Columbia program. She ultimately chose to go elsewhere but here is what I remember about these dual programs. Firstly, the cost of attendance is lower as the tuition in Europe is 10k euros (in the Sciences Po program anyway). The COA for Columbia was much higher than anywhere else my D applied, iirc projected to reach $93k in the 4th year, but this was offset by the cheap tuition for the first two years.
Second, the students in this program do not take the full Columbia core - there is just not enough time to do the dual degree and the whole rigorous core. They take some classes that count toward the core in Europe but these are easier and generously scored (this needs to be confirmed for TCD). When they go back to Columbia, they work to complete the requirements for their major. As a result, the students from these dual programs have higher GPA than the students that go to Columbia proper. IIRC, one of the students from the dual program was the valedictorian of the whole class. It was unclear what exactly they learn in Sciences Po - did not seem very rigorous or well defined. It did not help that my D did not know French.
We attended an admitted students event where we heard their stories. In terms of job prospects, all these students did very well.
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Terrific summary. I would add that the actual instruction in higher ed in France seems to pale in quality to what you would expect from a elite American private (heard from multiple sources; though note that the quantitative courses tend to be very rigorous because that is what the French expect) but TCD should be a lot better. But TCD would cost a lot more too than Sciences Po.
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