The gist of the idea is that the Department of Defense is a (the?) major funder of all sorts of industry in the US, typically in the form of contracts for products and services.
Your hand waving pessimism seems clearly unwarranted in this case. You think scholarships are just getting fired off with no one knowing who, where, or when?
At a decent guess for upper bound size, I see an estimate of 56% overall AD officers coming from ROTC. 2018 DoD demographics report puts total AD O-1 population at 28000, which should be a two year rank, so cut it in half for your new officers per year of 14000. Add 10% for people failing out, and you get about 8600 officers per year in ROTC, or a total of 34000 since it's a four year program.
Of course, using companies as a medium for propagating welfare has its own problems
Although now that I think about it, that's what ROTC is right? They pay for your education, and pay you to gain experience using that education on Defense, then when your obligation is met you can keep going or do your own thing with a patriotism-boosted resume. It's a win-win