I've been consulting for over a decade. I don't expect the company to pay to train me in a formal class, but they should expect project estimates to include "Marco Polo" time when you have to research something cutting edge.
Personally I like have work and personal computer space having a definite air gap. Most places have an IP agreement that stipulate their time and their equipment. Which is fine by me. If you want me to work at home you'll need to provide a laptop. If I'm going to set up a home lab it's because I want to dig into something interesting that will make me more marketable for the next contract.
Want to provide me with a weak sauce desktop, fine. They are the ones paying to have me sit there waiting for the compile to happen. I can demonstrate that a fast machine with SSD pays for itself in a rather short order. Though as a programmer I've rarely run into problems getting full admin and installing whatever I needed to get the job done.
As far as the contracting, I work with smaller firms. They take about a 10% cut. That's significantly less than national firms that take a 40+% cut. If companies actually started to invest in a future STEM workforce I'd likely get paid a lot less because of supply pressure. So far, that hasn't been the case.