I get a little confused between the official terms used in AROTC, NROTC and AFROTC, however, having said that:
I don't think Army ROTC actually has a term "college programmer". AROTC has "scholarship cadet" and "non-scholarship cadet". Many scholarship cadets have reported here that they usually don't know, and certainly don't care, who is on AROTC Scholarship and who isn't. Any student on campuses where AROTC classes are offered may enroll in the ROTC classes for MSI, and MSII. MSI and MSII are called "Basic Course". Any student may take these classes without any commitment to the Army.
However, as far as I understand it, nobody may take MSIII or MSIV courses, called "Advanced Course", without "Contracting"... which is signing a contract committing to either: three years Active Duty and five years Individual Ready Reserve duty, or 8 yrs Reserves. For scholarship students, the AD commitment is 4 years, with 4 years IRR.
So, a non-scholarship student interested in ROTC can actually fully participate for 2 school years before having to make the request / decide to Contract.
I do believe that both NROTC and AFROTC call their non-scholarship students "college programmers".
One last thing: The last couple of years have seen Army ROTC graduating classes composed of about 40% scholarship, 60% non-scholarship cadets - (that's a guess from pieces of information from many different sources). That number appears to be quickly on the way to 70% or even 80% non-scholarship cadets who will be Commissioned as 2nd Lieutenants, as fewer Scholarships were offered last year (about 30% fewer), fewer still this year, and into the near future. This is VERY different from the Navy which, as far as I can tell, where fewer than 10% of its commissioned ROTC officers each year were non-scholarship "college programmers".