Flu season is just around the corner and although no one is expecting anything as bad as the swine flu epidemic that swept college campuses in 2009, influenza remains one of the most under-feared serious illnesses around. Our college kids may shrug off the threat, but according to the CDC, the U.S. federal Centers for Disease Control, about 200,000 Americans are hospitalized with flu symptoms each year and 36,000 die from it.

Typically, the people hit hardest are the ones you'd expect: the very old, the very young and people with other serious health problems. That's partly what made the swine flu - or rather, H1N1, it's official name - so frightening.

H1N1 hit young, healthy people in their teens and 20s hard. More than 80,000 college students came down with the disease between August and mid-November of that year- more than 6,300 new cases every week. Universities turned entire dormitories into quarantine sites, launched mass immunization efforts and fretted over what to do with the roommates of sick students to keep them healthy too.

These days, virtually every university health center offers flu shots to students, faculty and staff in October and early November. At some schools, students in medically-related fields are required to get a flu shot by early November or risk their academic standing, but it's an essential vaccine to have no matter what your major. Even a relatively mild case of the flu can derail academic studies, so it's well worth any "aw, Mom, don't nag me!" outcries.

Remind your new freshman to get vaccinated.

Here's where to get those shots and what you're likely to pay.

Campus Health Centers: University health centers offer flu shots each fall at the campus clinic and/or drop-in immunization spots at the student union and other general locations. Some schools, including the University of Missouri, dispense the vaccines to registered students at the health clinic at no charge. Students show their student body cards and get the shot gratis, at "flu fairs" held in different sites on the Columbia University campus. And at the University of Arizona, where the vaccines are offered at the student health center and at drop-in clinics on the UA Mall, the shot is $17 if your student does not have insurance; it's free with campus health insurance.

Your child should have received campus flu shot information via email, but if he does not have details, tell him to check his dorm and dining hall bulletin boards, or call student health.

FluShot Health Map: Need more options for your child - or yourself? Take a peek at Health Map vaccine finder. This database includes pharmacies, hospitals and clinics offering vaccines, not only for flu but other illnesses as well. It's an offshoot of the Vaccine Finder map that Google designed in 2009 during the H1N1 pandemic to help people find flu clinics. Google handed the flu project off to HealthMap in 2012. A year later, HealthMap added 10 more adult vaccines, including immunizations for shingles, HPV, hepatitis A and B, and meningitis. The meningococcal vaccine is required by many universities.

Flu Precautions: This is a good time to go over some common sense health precautions too, and discuss what to do when your college kid gets sick. Between the academic stress, late nights and close living quarters, it's inevitable that your child will catch something at some point. Help him prepare for that now.