I believe the US requires internships for professional jobs like nurse and pharmacist. Also professional schools are required by licensing and accreditation boards (which are composed of practitioners in the field, not teachers who never leave the ivory tower) to be extremely "hands on". E.g. engineering schools have labs where students make things. Dental schools have clinics where students can serve patients under supervision. Etc.

Also bachelor's degrees get all the attention, but there' associates degrees, two-year degrees offered both by colleges and (very cheap) junior colleges. These include a lot of "less theoretical" stuff like dental hygienist or working with other kinds of specialized technology.