She didn’t opt out. They said, “no thanks”. She’s still willing to serve. The duties might not be combat related or anything more meaningful than pushing paper but they could find a job for her if they chose to. She could have completed her 4 years, walked onto a ship then suffered an injury that would have required a medical discharge. Should she have to pay it back then?
She signed the contract - perhaps she should have read it first.
The options for reassignment post-commissioning are very different. They generally don’t pay full rides to people going into administrative positions - the reason they are willing to pay for school is to get people into certain designators.
And to your point about payback - officers and enlisted personnel in the nuclear program (as just one example) are in fact required to pay back bonuses if they lose their ability to perform the roles for which they were given the bonus. If they fail out or medical out of nuke school they are required to pay back their signing/commissioning bonuses .
Her desire is not the question - her ability to meet the terms of the contract is the issue. They have determined she can’t.
She can do just like any other civilian and get a student loan to cover her costs and work hard to pay it back.
Oh heck, you won me over - the Navy should just pay the tuition for every student in America who says they WANT to serve, but for some reason can’t...