It can cost a lot to attend one of the country's top colleges, but does it pay?

Using school rankings from U.S. News & World Report and salary data from PayScale, GOBankingRates crunched the numbers to figure out what grads from the top schools make within the first five years in the workforce. For comparison's sake, the median salary for workers 25 and over with at least a Bachelor's degree is around $60,000.

The median early career salary for every one of these schools exceeds that, except the University of Chicago, which comes in just below. So a diploma from a top-tier college can indeed give you a significant boost, money-wise.

The field you choose can also have a major impact on how much you earn: Jobs in engineering, computer science, finance and consulting often pay much higher starting salaries than those in humanities or communications, for instance, and top schools often funnel grads into those lucrative industries.

Here's how much graduates earn zero-to-five years after attending the top 10 colleges in the U.S.: