Education and earnings interact in complex and often unexpected ways--but there are rules to the game. "The College Payoff," a new paper from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, uses in-depth data analysis to identify, illuminate and elucidate those rules. This executive summary provides a glimpse of the education and earnings game, and cracks open the rule book for examination. (Contains 17 figures.) [For the full report, "The College Payoff: Education, Occupations, Lifetime Earnings," see ED524299.]