Starting this month, military veterans pursuing an education under the G.I. Bill have many more choices. The money for tuition, books and housing used to be just for study at colleges and universities, but now the G.I. Bill also covers non-degree institutions like vocational and technical schools, flight schools, and licensing and apprenticeship programs.

That is good news. Veterans, who deserve this country’s full support, are struggling with high unemployment rates and would benefit from high-quality job training. But there is also peril in these new opportunities. Unless strong controls are put in place, the surge of G.I. Bill money will be a windfall for fly-by-night schools more interested in cashing in on veterans than educating them.

As a Senate committee warned in a recent report, a disproportionate amount of the taxpayer money spent on veterans’ education has already been snapped up by private, for-profit colleges. These schools often cost much more than public institutions yet have dismal graduation rates and dubious curriculums.

The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions found that for-profit schools have collected 37 percent of all G.I. Bill money but trained only 25 percent of veterans. In the 2010-11 academic year, when 5,985 institutions collected $4.4 billion in V.A. benefits, eight of the 10 biggest aid recipients were for-profit institutions, together raking in $1 billion. From those eight, the committee found, a total of 409,437 students withdrew from degree programs within a year of enrolling.