I agree that if she's at the beginning of her career and interested at all in UI/UX design then that is more lucrative and more flexible these days.
ID is a tough field and one done as a labor of love; it generally doesn't pay as much as engineering and it is hard to get into the "all-star" level of income. I graduated 10 years ago, and most of my "successful" colleagues either set out on their own or used their specific ID skillset to work into a different industry. The focus on ergonomics, human experience and systems thinking tend to excel in adjacent fields (project management, web development, UI/UX, etc.). It's kind of a jack-of-all opportunity, at least from the college I graduated.
I have a substandard income relative to my experience and performance, but I really like many of the projects I've worked on, which boosts the daily quality of living. It is also a field that you can feel like you're contributing if you find the right job. But if you're just designing trinkets and junk it can feel the opposite.
And as your friend has probably noticed, most of the jobs are in bigger cities and higher cost of living. It's not nearly as dispersed of a field as, say, nursing, where jobs are everywhere.