It's a bogus requirement in N America. It's designed to keep poor people out of medical school. I think the 5 & 6 year medical programs are a far better use of resources.
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I spent $120,000 on an undergraduate degree (not factoring in living costs) and I can't even get a job with it. But I needed it as a prereq for med school.
hm. It's a difference in educational philosophy is all it is. Coming from that system, I take my family's view that uni (American college, in the liberal arts tradition) is an extension of primary education -- the value of the education is not that you're prepared for a trade, but that you're well-grounded and well-rounded, able to adapt and integrate your experiences and strengths into whatever field(s) you pursue. My bro with a physics degree the writer of the top Fidelity financial newsletter; sister with a BA in art history, manager at a multi-national shipping company; me with math, a former Wall Street IT consultant and behavioral psych researcher, now a doc; etc..
I also went to college with practically no money -- there is no reason an intelligent person (or even a motivated not-so-intelligent person) with little or no money can't figure out how to pay for college, between grants, loans, scholarships, and work-study arrangements (at one point I got half-time enrollment for free just because I worked for my uni half-time). Sure, any debt will have to be paid later, but for this current discussion about medical school, that future debt is moot.
Even if you consider a biochem/bio/chem degree virtually useless (which view I really can't empathize with), there's also no reason you have to get one of those degrees. In fact, getting one will put you at a disadvantage come application time for most US med schools. The nature of American undergrad degrees, by having many electives and cross-disciplinary options in their requirements, either requires or IMO easily allows for the premed courses (physics, English, bio, inorganic chem, organic chem) to be taken along the way. Worst case, a grad has to take a separate class or two before applying to medicine -- I have a math degree and took 2nd semester inorganic chem (not even required by many med schools) at Tufts, after taking the MCAT which doesn't really test on it, when making just 22k per year (albeit in the '90s) as a lowly researcher.
At any rate, your view of undergrad degrees seems a bit parochial -- did you grow up outside the US? There, if you want to be hard-wired for a trade, you go to trade school. If you want to be in a cross-disciplinary field that requires intellectual curiosity -- not to mention some sense of what's generally defined as altruism -- you need to demonstrate that you're covered (some specific requirements if not to show a quasi-standardized ability in related fields; an undergrad degree, ideally unrelated; research experience and propensity for volunteerism to show the better schools; an ability and willingness to teach a big plus; etc.)
