"... you're being paid for that job, so you are responsible. That means you have to learn how the technology in your environment works and how to solve the problems you have."

Steve, there is a hidden flaw in this approach: people love to learn about things they already know, and they (usually) do not proactively learn about things they do not know but they might need. It implies that you need an outsider's look to help you see what you don't know, but in a company that would mean that your (hopefully) more experienced boss will tell you how much of your money you should spend and how, to a large degree for the benefit of the company.

So it makes sense if the company pays for your education but makes you sign an agreement that you will stay for a set time. Good companies do this even for contractors, if they want them to renew after the end of the fiscal year or whatever may be the arbitrary cut-off of their POs.

In many cases cost of good courses and time given for self-study is more than reasonable insurance. One minute of downtime of the app on which I am now is in four digits, and the first one is not necessarily '1'. It follows that an hour of (likely) prevented downtime pays for lots of courses and books.

Besides, from the management perspective, if you give people opportunity to learn - courses, books, whatever - and something goes wrong, your a** is covered.