As Northeastern University third-year student Ashly Pietra walked through the doors of her school’s student health clinic, she thought she had nothing to lose. She was healthy and had no particular reason to believe anything was wrong with her body, but decided it was a good idea to get tested for sexually transmitted diseases, just in case.

Pietra hit a roadblock, though. Northeastern insurance requires students to prove symptoms of STDs before they are tested, she said, and she would have to pay out of her own pocket if she wanted a test. “I was really confused,” Pietra said. “[I] told [health services] I wanted to get tested, and the woman asked me if it was just to get peace of mind, and she said that I couldn’t get it unless I had symptoms.

“At such a liberal campus, you’d think Northeastern would have a more progressive policy,” she said. “The policy they have now is going to end up hurting students.”

According to the American Social Health Association’s website, more than 65 million people in the United States have an STD or sexually transmitted infection, and more than half of all people will have an STD or STI during their lifetimes.

Additionally, the website says the diseases, some of which can thrive without any signs of it existing, can cause complications for women such as cervical cancer, infertility and Hepatitis B, a disease 100 times more infectious than HIV.

Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts spokeswoman Lisa Dacey said prices for testing or treatment are based on individual insurance at the clinic.

“Depending on what their insurance is, there are a lot of different factors that would decide how much it would cost,” Dacey said.

Dacey declined to comment on how often sexually active college students should be tested and if she believed students should have the right to always be tested free of charge.

Boston University Student Health Services Director Dr. David McBride said many insurance companies do not cover screening tests.

“Some people assume that because they have insurance, everything is covered, and this is not the way the world works,” he said. “Students need to be aware of what their policy covers, and if a particular test is not covered, they need to responsibly weigh the risks and benefits of having or not having the test.”

McBride said BU offers full testing and accepts multiple insurances.

“We provide [testing] as part of the care that we provide to students,” McBride said.

Northeastern’s student health clinic did not return repeated phone calls.