I've worked with about 50 different game programmers in the last 5 years, all of them have a bachelors in CS or Math. I can tell you that most interviewers don't care much about the exact school you went to, they care more about experience, and skills that you have. It's somewhat of a double standard, most interviewers want you to have at least a bachelor's degree, but they could really case less which school you got it from. Without a degree I would estimate that you'll miss out on more than half of your job opportunities just due to not even getting an interview. To properly cover your bases in the case where game programming doesn't work out for you, I would recommend a decent 4-year college that focuses particularly on computer science in some way, this will leave you with a degree that you can use for programming in any field. There are some colleges that offer degrees specific to game programming, however they're rarely accredited and you'll be left with a degree that makes it hard to move to non-game programming.
Apart from just the college, here's some general advice for getting into the industry.
If you want to get into game programming I suggest determining which part of game programming you enjoy most and want to focus on, and spend time on that (e.g. A.I., physics, gameplay, graphics). Become an expert in that specialty, learn cutting-edge techniques, make demos and videos for a digital portfolio, and learn the languages that most companies are looking for. Also, keep in mind that most colleges you choose from will be teaching programming practices in general, not something specific to games, so you're going to have to take the initiative to apply the programming you learn to learning how it applies to games, in your spare time.
The language(s) and game engines you choose to learn will likely be based on the type of games you want to focus on. If you want to make web-based games then something like Flash, Unity (C# and Javascript), HTML5, and WebGL would be the likely choices. If you want to make AAA game titles for PC, Mac, and/or consoles then C++ is probably the most used. If you're making mobile games for platforms like Android or iPhone, C++ (iPhone), and Objective-C (iPhone), Java (Android-based devices), and Unity (iPhone and Android) are good choices.
I highly recommend looking through job listings at all kinds of gaming companies around the country, see what kinds of things they're looking for, find out what is most in demand so that you choose a specialty that is more likely to land you a job. Also be mindful of the future, technology is always changing very rapidly. The iPhone came out a little over 4 years ago, if you had just graduated from a 4-year college today the gaming industry would already be vastly different than when you had started school. Make sure you choose to learn languages and skills that will be relevant 5-10 years from now, not ones that are on their way out the door already.