This guide is designed to help school counselors advise college-bound students and college students about the federal student financial assistance programs available through the Department of Education. The first section gives general information on the aid programs, eligibility requirements, and how a student demonstrates financial need. The second section gives detailed information on the application process, using the Free Application for Federal Student Aid form (FAFSA), including renewal FAFSA, FAFSA on the World Wide Web, FAFSA Express, renewal FAFSA on the Web, use of electronic data exchange, obtaining signatures when applying electronically, receiving a student's application data, submitting the initial application, how the application is processed, reviewing the forms resulting from submission of FAFSA, making information changes, using professional judgment in overriding dependency determination, the "school use only" box on the form, documenting eligibility, handling feedback from the processing system, and 1998-99 application deadlines. The final section walks through completion of the FAFSA form by section and line. An appendix lists organizational and print sources of additional information. (MSE)