&gt; Why not just provide $30&#x2F;month extra salary?<p>It is a training stipend. The company benefits more from you learning new things than they do by providing you $30 cash.<p>I will say books <i>only</i> seems restrictive. Pluralsight has nice training material in video form, and other places are doing interesting weekend courses, why is dead paper the only method of learning to these companies?