The structure and documentation of High School and Beyond First Follow-Up data files represent a departure from Base Year practices. The Base Year student file contains data from both the senior and sophomore cohorts. Due to the more complex design of the First Follow-Up and resulting increase in the volume of available data, separate First Follow-Up files have been created for the two cohorts. Each file is accompanied by a separate user's manual. However, to ensure that researchers are fully aware of the interrelationships among the many components of the study, this user's manual presents an overview of the entire study. Thus, a central objective of this manual is to provide a full understanding of all the goals and potential uses of the datasets that comprise High School and Beyond. The second major objective of this manual is to provide the user with the technical assistance needed to use the computer file, both as an independent dataset and as a component that may be merged with a growing system of related data bases. (PN)