Consider the rate of job hopping that would be evident on that resume. I'm not sure how many companies would be willing to invest in sending a FTE who stays somewhere for likely less than a year to a conference or say "Ok, you an spend 20% of your time improving your skills."

What is more likely with the 35 number is that these are multiple simultaneous contracts. When working as a contractor you're fixing that problem or that project. The company isn't going to have you around for longer than a month after it's been fixed and documented.

There's no reason to spend company resources on training a person any more than there's reason for you to pay a plumber to be reading "learn to be an electrician in 10 days" while they're supposed to be working on fixing the sink or doing the plumbing for new construction.

It's all so vague. "lack of investment in their skill".

You just spent $250k and 5 years in college learning stuff.

You get hired to do a job for money.

What "investment" do you expect company to do?

Give me number of weeks and amount of dollars per year and tell me how it stacks against $250k and 5 years that you just spent?

If you want to learn on the job, shouldn't YOU be paying the company for teaching you, like you pay college to teach you?