Close to 5 million students don’t have health insurance, report says.

Susana Sagastizado, a senior at the University of Maryland, started coughing today. Her nose is running a bit and she feels an ill warmth on her forehead — all bad signs, she said since she doesn’t have health insurance.

Luckily, the university’s health center provides care at a reasonable price, so Sagastizado can be seen and pay for a flu shot using her part-time income. But if she does have the flu, joining the more than 600 suspected cases at Maryland, it gets worse. The 21-year-old’s good fortune could end.

“I worry about it a lot, it’s always in the back of my head,” Sagastizado said about not having insurance. Her parents can’t afford to have her and her two brothers on their insurance without losing their home. “I feel anxious especially when I’m sick. You always think of the worst-case scenario that you might have to go to an emergency room.”

College students have become the invisible minority in the national health care debate, as millions—middle-income and students of color especially— go without coverage. On the heels of President Barack Obama’s health care speech to students at Maryland, experts interviewed by Diverse say college students are being left out.

Though often considered the most vibrant and healthy class of privileged Americans, postsecondary students have serious short and long-term health and financial issues, according to a June 2009 report by a group of college health professionals.

“College students have a higher propensity to be uninsured for longer than other young adults,” said Stephen Beckley, a student health insurance consultant for more than 200 schools including Dartmouth College and Duke University. “They use an impressive amount of health care, not unlike other groups.”

Beckley is one of the researchers in the Lookout Mountain Group (LMG) report released by an unaffiliated, nonpartisan, grass-roots coalition of college health professionals.