College Students Also Need Flu Vaccine, Experts Say

But Minnesota's Ehlinger said that a free vaccine certainly made it easier to get more students immunized.

If students had to pay, "we wouldn't be getting the same numbers we're getting," he said.

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Study researchers believe that increased vaccine use will benefit college students in other ways.

"If we want to get to universal coverage with immunization, a good place to do that is with college students," Ehlinger said, adding that vaccination in college would give them the habit of being vaccinated later in life.

Ehlinger also noted that students at state schools like Minnesota have half their tuition paid for by the state's citizens, and getting them immunized would keep them in the classes that taxpayers were covering.

"Keeping students in class is a good investment that all of us have in college students," he said.