Years of research show that, when it comes to your future paycheck, the name on your degree really does count. ... Bloomberg Businessweek has teamed up with Payscale, which collects self-reported earnings data from its users, to estimate the return on investment for more than 500 colleges. ... The upper ranks of the list is dominated by elite private colleges, though, on percentage basis, some of the best deals are top state colleges, such as Georgia Tech and University of Virginia.