The Graduate Destinations Report, released on Friday, surveyed students of on-campus health and human services degrees on where they had chosen to work after graduating.

The students had graduated in the years between 2007 and 2009.

The report found 74 per cent of students from inner regional areas and 75 per cent from outer regional areas worked in a regional area after graduating.

Eighty-nine per cent of students from remote areas and 71 per cent from very remote areas accepted employment in a rural area.

The portion of metropolitan students who stayed on and practised in a regional area was 43 per cent.

The fields that retained the highest proportion of regional students were psychology, nutrition and dietetics, podiatry, nuclear medicine technology, pharmacy and social work.

“These results reinforce national and international studies that have found the only proven method to significantly increase the number of health professionals practising in rural and regional areas is by educating rural students in rural locations," CSU science faculty dean Professor Nick Klomp said.

Professor Klomp said the report reinforced CSU's argument that its own medical school would boost the number of doctors working in rural areas.

“Many universities can rightly claim to be contributing graduates to the rural health workforce, but no university outside regional Australia could claim that up to 90 per cent of their health and human services graduates are taking up employment in rural and regional areas after graduation,” he said.

“If we want rural young people to stay in rural Australia, we must provide the same range of educational opportunities that have been given to metropolitan young people by the government. This is not only essential for retaining young people in rural areas, but for rebuilding our professional health workforce."

In Australia, there is a shortfall of 1800 rural doctors.

CSU says it wants 50 per cent of students of its proposed medical school to have regional backgrounds.

What the report found:

74 per cent of CSU's inner regional graduates worked in regional areas.

75 per cent of outer regional graduates worked in regional areas.

89 per cent of remote and 71 per cent of very remote graduates worked in a rural area.

43 per cent of metropolitan students stayed in a rural area.

The fields that retained the highest

proportion of regional graduates were:

Psychology (92 per cent)

Nutrition and dietetics (91 per cent)

Podiatry (89 per cent)

Nuclear medicine technology (86 per cent)

Pharmacy (83 per cent)

Social work (80 per cent)