It seems they were correct not to invest in your skills.
I've worked for six companies over almost 20 years. The majority invested in my skills, and I hope that investment has paid off for them!
Hanging around for a while (a long while) doesn't necessarily mean dedication worth investing in, it could just be that I have a shocking lack of ambition :)
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.
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?
(To explicitly state the obvious: I'm not saying OP's a bad person for doing this, just saying the employers were right not to invest in them...)
