Relocating Across Country to be in same city as step daughter

I’ll try to keep things as brief as possible.
My husband and I have two daughters. 6 year old, turning 7 in March is husband’s biological daughter with bm & we have a seven month old.

My husband and I are from the same city but when we met through a close friend, he was still living in Vegas - where he’d been for almost ten years. That’s where he met his bm who he was with for awhile & that’s where his daughter was born/raised.

From the beginning I told my husband I wasn’t leaving our hometown till I finished school. There was a lot that transpired and I kind of got off track with school. With that being said, husband was struggling in Vegas looking for a job for awhile and eventually moved back to hometown where he is now making the most money he has ever made.

Initially was banking on bm allowing daughter to come because where she was in life at the time, but the very influential grandmother said she wouldn’t let that happen. It hasn’t been a smooth path but things have eventually gotten better. SD comes for all school breaks & sometimes we go out there to visit as well. Her birthday also falls around spring break consistently.

We have a very affordable living arrangement which allows us to send money for sd monthly and also pay for day care for our baby. By no means are we well off or really even excelling financially. We both have good jobs and I have exceptional benefits that the four of us are on and our daughters could even go to college for free. I’m approaching the end of my studies and considering going to graduate school. I have been compiling list of local schools to apply to and also UNLV.

I was very familiar with Vegas before meeting my husband and have never been a fan. I was even considering moving out there in 2019 with my aunt but I always knew I’d have to come back home to finish school. Also didn’t help that I genuinely just don’t like it out there.

While the current schedule has worked thus far, it’s not really something that seems sustainable long term and we have immense guilt about us being long distance with first daughter. Our main support systems are here for both sides of the family, our living arrangement is exponentially better than what we’d get for market rent here or even purchasing a home in either city. I’m heavily weighing the pros and cons of moving across the country so both of our girls can be raised more together and both have dad nearby.

The Clark County School district ranks horribly nationally and Vegas is just not as family friendly. Though my husband never intended to live in Vegas forever, he prefers it over our home town and of course is looking forward to us potentially relocating sooner than later.

I have not applied to any schools yet or taken my entry exam but I do believe it would be best to go to whichever school I get the largest scholarship for. If that’s not UNLV then that would be delaying the relocation further. I’d also like to note, I really don’t even want to go to UNLV but it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.

Hopefully this reads well as it’s super late and this has been on my mind plenty! I’m hoping for sound advice/ opinions. I should also mention sd is level two autistic and receives great services locally as mom & gma haven’t taken her to speech & ot out there street husbands move due to lack of time when we technically were strapped for time too but make it work with my flexible work arrangements and my husbands 12 hour swing shifts. Bm also had a short cps investigation this passed May due to her actions around sd but her charges (which she did commit admittedly to us) were dropped and so was the requirement for parenting classes and the cps investigation.

I could go on and on. If you made it this far, thank you!! ❤️‍🩹