Why in the US do students study law/medicine after graduating from college in grad schools? Why cant there be an undergrad major on law/medicine that educates students to be doctors/lawyers?

I cannot speak to legal education, other than to point out that we have a surplus of lawyers in the US, and that, therefore, I do not think that lowering the cost of legal education would lower the cost of legal services.  We have a substantial number of unemployed or underemployed lawyers.  The problem with legal expenses is that normal market price-setting mechanisms don't work. With respect to medical education, I was not privy to the decisions that led to our system of medical education, so I can only tell you what I think the benefits are.  I am a US-educated doctor, and I have discussed this with doctors who were educated in countries whose educational systems are similar to what the questioner proposes. I am a better doctor and biomedical scientist because of my undergraduate education in mathematics and the sciences.  I am a better citizen because of my education in the humanities.  If I had it to do over and had a choice between the education that I had and the education that the questioner proposes, I would do the same thing over. In addition, lowering the cost of medical education would not lower the cost of healthcare appreciably because compensation for doctors is not a large part of the total cost.  What it would be expected to lead to would be more doctors pursuing lower-paying specialties, like family practice and pediatrics.  It is arguable that having a broader education better equips one to think critically,  and that doctors having better critical-thinking ability might help control costs by leading to fewer treatments and tests that are not beneficial.

aside from the obvious flaws with the education system as stated by Mr and a surplus of legal degree holders as stated by Mr , i will go the other way with my response.. i think the question was about the actual requirement to have an undergraduate degree (4 years) on top of the additional schooling (2 years for lawyers and another decade for doctors).. the realistic reason - aside from colleges being money-making machines - is for lawyers to acquire some perspective about college and to mature enough to weigh all the pros and cons about going further into debt to get to their destination.. as for doctors, this profession is specifically designated as pre-med major in colleges, and as doctors are valued based on their experience, how many patients would trust a 20-year-old wielding a scalpel? yes, the latter is an exaggeration to make a point about the need for learning and for historically acceptable parameters for each of these respectable occupations.

First off, we don't need more lawyers.  Trust me on this.  We have an overabundance of unemployed lawyers.  We also have an overabundance of bad lawyers.  We have too many lawyers.  We do not need more of the same.   Next, as far as the shortage of doctors, we do have a lot of med students.  There is no shortage of medical schools.  There are not enough residencies -- the 3+ years a med student spends treating people in the ER and On Call doing 12 to 28 hour shifts all over the country, a licensure requirement.   Medicine is not cars.  It's not like a tourist business where you can generate more tourists and build a hotel.  Medicine is one of those things where less is more.  Fewer sick people = less "business" for hospitals.   Let me ask you:  When's the last time you went to check into a hotel and told the desk you don't have the money to pay for this vacation?   Have you ever gone to Bloomingdale's and shopped for a Prada bag, but explained you can't pay for it?   How about gas?  When you run out of gas, do you go to the gas station and explain that you need them to give it to you for free?   Can you get ANY of these things for free if you make too much money?  Does insurance pay for any of it?   Of course not.  But health care is not like that.  Not in most civilized countries.   If you crash that car, or you get shot at Bloomingdale's, or your hotel is blown up, I guarantee they are not going to ask you to pay the bill before they throw you on a gurney and wheel you into the ER.  If you can answer them, you might give them your insurance provider information.   The best way to deal with not-enough in the health care field is to create LESS demand for it.  Fewer sick people is a good thing.   Although other countries have 6 year programs leading to MD's, they don't have a lot of other things.  There are, for instance, no "clubs" or athletics or much of the things that make college in the US the 4 best years of your life.   On top of that, in some countries, these "medical schools" for 18 year olds are FREE.  The competition is much much much higher than in the U.S.  They lose these doctors to the U.S.  Contrary to popular opinion, many of these other med schools are better than anything you'll find here, and the students are smarter because it is much harder to get in and sometimes based on a single admisisons test, sort of like an MCAT but only taking the cream of the cream.   If however someone gets the bright idea to expand the number of med students graduating anyway, we will have another problem:  Medical students who cannot get a license, even though they graduated, because they cannot meet the residency requirement.  They now owe Salliemae bills for FOUR years of med school plus living plus tests plus books plus plus plus.  One medical college on Long Island that expels students is being sued for this; the students can't pay their loans.  When the students are foreign, there is a high incentive for them to move out of the US.  The college knows they rarely have the resources to file a lawsuit.  What would you do if you got stuck with a $250-500,000 med school loan and you could not pay it back?   ?   Neither do I.