Last semester, the Daily wrote an editorial supporting the increase in elderly people making their home in Iowa. But it turns out Iowa’s aging population might end up hurting the state over the next two decades.

According to a recent study from the Iowa Fiscal Partnership, the state might have some trouble covering health needs for the 22 percent of Iowans who will be over 64 years old by 2030. What’s more, funding for education could suffer as well.

What does this mean? As the state’s elderly population swells, there will be a greater demand for government programs for that demographic, which will eventually pull funding from other areas in the state’s budget like education.

In a recent article in the Ames Tribune, Peter Fischer, research director at the Iowa Policy Project, said “something’s going to have to give.”

So what should that something be? As students at one of the state’s three universities, we know there is a push by our educators, legislators and sometimes parents to stay in the state and start our careers in Iowa after college.

It’s unfair for us to place future blame on the growing elderly population that most likely supports the education of Iowa’s youth. So the something that has to change is us — the college students.

We support students making their careers here, in the same state that educated them. Granted, this isn’t a clear-cut solution to this potential problem, but it’s a start. Iowa is a great place to live. Sure, the winters are cold and the summers humid, but the cost of living is cheap and the people are nice.

On Wednesday, the Generation Iowa Commission, created by Gov. Chet Culver a year ago, released a report citing strengths and weaknesses in Iowa educating and retaining young college graduates. It said the state is one of the best at bringing students to its universities, but it is also one of the states most likely to lose those graduates after graduation. The commission listed four additional recommendations on top of their initial report this spring. A few of the recommendations included creating more high-wage, higher education jobs and creating more opportunities for young Iowans to get involved with state government.

With the commission’s hard work at identifying the weaknesses as well as the strengths of Iowa’s future, they’re on the right track to preventing potential problems like this one down the road.

Keep up the good work, and hopefully by 2030 we’ll be looking at a different problem.