I would be wary of that recruiter-- it sounds like he might be bending the truth on how that actually works and is glossing over a few pretty big points. Hopefully, this is not the case and you just didn't mention a few of the things I bring up below.
If you enlist, you will have technical training as a follow-on. Army calls it "AIT", Air Force says "Tech School", etc. This lasts anywhere from 2 months to 2 years, depending on what you enlist to do. You cannot attend college or use tuition assistance while in your technical training.
The catch is that Guard and Reserves typically get a limited number of seats at technical training schools (AD gets the bulk), so they usually won't send you to Basic until they can reserve your technical training spot. This way they are not paying for you to sit around somewhere waiting a month or two for your class to start (like is common on AD). What that means to you is that it could be 6 months to a year before you even go to Basic with the Reserves or Guard. Then you have your multi-month tech training after that.
Compounding that is that being classified as "non-deployable" is a great way to destroy your career in the Army enlisted side-- regardless of the reason. You might not care about this now (planning on going to school after all), but what if something happens and you get DQ'd for something that happens during basic or tech training? What if you get seriously injured at Basic or tech training? I had a bunch of guys get injured in my Basic training and get sent home, a bunch more in OTS, and even one guy die in my Basic (heat exhaustion + dehydration). What if you get busted doing something you aren't supposed to be doing (drinking underage, DUI, etc-- all common for young enlisted to do at that point in their careers)? DUI pretty much kills your O package. So at that point, you would be looking at an enlisted (or maybe warrant-maybe) career-- that you sabotaged by missing the first few deployments. Not a great look.
On the flip side, if you do the program your Army recruiter is talking about (I am very familiar with it), it isn't necessarily a bad gig. The catch is that it only works out if everything comes together in a streamlined fashion. However, you run the risk of getting stuck in the Guard if they don't give you a conditional release (it does happen from time to time), you run the risk of being deployed (they will deploy you if they want/need to, regardless of your student status and what the recruiter says), and you will NOT get a "pay bump". What he is referring to is the O-1E through O-3E pay scale. To qualify for that, you need a minimum of 4 years of active military days (365 days/year). There is no way you will get that while in college as you will-- you know-- be in college. Sure, you'll have 4 years' Guard or Reserves time, but that only works out to around 63 active military days/year (assuming you do all 15 days of annual training plus never miss a drill). So....no "pay bump" as a prior-enlisted officer.
My advice: do one of the following courses of action:
1) Just be normal and try for a SA or ROTC scholarship-- best solution if you just want to be an officer
2) Enlist in Active Duty, serve 4-6 years, get the 100% tuition assistance while on AD, get your bachelors before your enlistment is up, go to OCS after your bachelors (or ROTC for your master's), and then be a SOLID prior-E officer starting out as an O-1E
3) Enlist in the Guard or Reserves, get a year or two of school done with tuition assistance (most states pick up the full cost of in-state tuition for Guardsmen), get a deployment in, and then when you are about 2-3 years out from being done, join ROTC (this way you can handle an add'l deployment if it comes up without it killing your ROTC progression). You won't get the prior-E pay, but will get the experience-- which is valuable, believe me.
4) Same as #3, but don't join ROTC and just go to OCS after graduating
Don't do the following:
1) #4 without being in the Guard/Reserves. OCS/OTS/WOCS are TOUGH to get into as a civilian-- very few seats and highly competitive. You'd be better off just going on for your master's and trying ROTC again.
I'm glad to hear you're open to the idea of being a prior-E officer. Despite the opinion of many, it really is a very valid path that ultimately produces a very well-rounded officer. However, without proper planning, it can easily drag out your undergrad degree-- especially if you pick a career field that is not conducive for part-time college.
Again, if you are accurately communicating what the recruiter told you, then it sounds he is definitely not giving you the whole story, bending the truth a little, and leaving some pretty big key parts out.
