FARMINGTON, Mo. &#8212 An eastern Missouri teen thought her college tuition was taken care of when the Navy presented her with a mock check for $180,000, but the Navy has now rescinded the scholarship, saying she can’t be an ROTC student because of an old back injury.

Danielle Littrell, 18, turned down scholarships from several schools to enlist with the Navy’s ROTC program.

The Navy presented Littrell with a check for $180,000 in November, but the military later pulled the funds, citing a back injury that Littrell suffered in a 2005 basketball game. The herniated disc didn’t keep the 6-foot Littrell from playing basketball at Farmington High School last year. She also earned a black belt in karate.

Littrell will move into her dorm at Loyola University in Chicago on Tuesday, but without the scholarship funds.

“I love the school, I just don’t know if I’ll be able to continue there,” she told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for Sunday’s edition.

Her mother, Lori Littrell, said the family might have to find something more economical. Loyola costs about $27,000 a year.

The ROTC program allows a student to pick a college, and Littrell hoped to go on to a top medical school after graduating from Loyola.

The program offered four years of free college in exchange for four years of service as an officer. If she qualified for medical school, the Navy would pay for that, too, and she would serve an additional two years.

At a Nov. 15 ceremony at the high school in Farmington, 50 miles south of St. Louis, four naval officers presented Littrell with the mock check. The Navy came back to the school in the spring to make another presentation.

Lori Littrell thought the Navy was using her daughter’s success to help with recruitment, but she didn’t mind at the time.

“The Navy was getting a lot of publicity out of her,” she said. “Now, in many ways, I feel Danielle was used.”

On March 16, Littrell went to Scott Air Force Base for a medical examination by a Navy doctor. She told the doctor about the old basketball injury, but said she had physical therapy and the pain was gone.

“The doctor said there was nothing to worry about,” Danielle Littrell said.

On July 19, she got a one-page letter from the Department of Defense telling her she was not fit for duty because of her herniated disc and a “weak or painful back.”

The family protested and her orthopedist sent additional medical records to the Navy to bolster her case.

On July 30, the military said in a letter that it was standing by its decision. With college only four weeks away, the Littrells took out loans.

Lori Littrell said her daughter never hid the condition and the Navy should have acted sooner. She wants an apology and an explanation about why it took 16 weeks after the physical for the Navy to reject her daughter.