The situation is probably less immediately dire than the numbers would suggest - most graduates of science programs at second-tier colleges chose their program

The situation is probably less immediately dire than the numbers would suggest - most graduates of science programs at second-tier colleges chose their program with the goal of getting into a medicine or allied healthcare program, these are graduate degrees in the US. That said, it's a mess. These undergraduate programs tend to teach to the test, the curriculum has little relevance to what shows up in the nursing program, and when there is a conflict between learning and GPA the GPA always wins. And then there's the added student debt and missing earnings from the undergraduate program. Some universities have instituted BA/MD joint-degree seven-year programs. These are the future, change can't come soon enough.