Nik Rajkovic / news@whmi.com

So-called "brain drain" is leading Michigan down a path of losing 700,000 residents by 2050.

A recent report from the Michigan Center for Data and Analytics warns more college grads will flee the state for jobs elsewhere, leaving behind an aging population.

"Since 2020, Michigan was 49th in population growth," said MSU economics professor Ronald Fisher, a member of the governor's Growing Michigan Together Council.

"Yes, the population is not growing as fast nationally as it once did. But the Michigan population is going down."

"Michigan is losing between 5,000 and 6,000 college graduates every year. Maybe as many as 30 percent of the students who graduate from Michigan colleges are choosing to live elsewhere," he told WILX Lansing. "So it's not just that we're losing population. We're getting older as a state."

Fisher says the state needs to have the environment and incentives to keep college grads from moving away from Michigan.

"It's a lack of jobs in new, growing high-tech industries that maybe are concentrated elsewhere, and not in Michigan."

Click the link below to see the MCDA report.