When we start seeing that happen, we're back to the focus on ability to show work, experiments behind them, and the ability to describe the work in great detail to a potential employer in order to get the job.
also , for new college grad jobs in chemistry, rocket design, metalurgy -- these can most certainly be done at home, or civilian grade facilities. See also Amateur Rocket Society and the kinds of things they're up to http://www.space-rockets.com/arsa.html
Also to deflect a potential counterpoint: most of the very expensive equipment will probably never be any cheaper because it isn't built in enough quantities, and for things like good RF equipment, everything needs to be carefully spec'd and machined, and the manufacturing is very time and resource intensive (you're getting your money's worth on a good spectrum analyzer or network analyzer, typically).
I have less than $10K in my HP8510C, thanks to eBay, but I'm also lucky that I'm not into organic chemistry or something else that would get me added to the no-fly list as soon as I tried to equip my lab.
In some states like Texas, the brave, patriotic drug warriors have successfully outlawed common glassware. After all, why would you want an Erlenmeyer flask or a reflux condenser if you're not cooking meth? Eventually, I'm sure it will occur to them that I could use my VNA to optimize the radar cross-section of a homebrew drone to evade the air defenses at the White House, and that'll be the end of that hobby.
Totally agree about having a person present -- but moocs don't preclude that - see "inverted classroom" concepts.
back to complicated high-end equipment :
* there are people who have electron microscopes of their own - http://hackedgadgets.com/2013/01/01/garage-scanning-electron... .
* usb protocol analyzers used to be 20k (if I remember correctly how much catc's were) ...and now they are available for < $100 or can be made with open source parts.
Its hard to imagine ahead of time, but many exotic things come down in price and complexity when smart people come along and imagine a need for them in their garages or similar lower-end-than-original setting.
fun discussion!