For most students from low- or moderate-income families, successfully completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is a crucial gateway on the path to college access. However, FAFSA filing and income verification tasks pose substantial barriers to college access for low-income students. In this paper, the authors report on a pair of interventions that utilize automated, text-based outreach to: (1) provide students and families with customized information about the importance of and their status on completing the FAFSA; (2) simplify information for students and families about how to complete the FAFSA; and (3) connect students and families to personalized counseling assistance to complete the FAFSA as well as the subsequent verification process, if selected. Data from the study points to the benefit of text-based outreach as a low-cost and readily scalable strategy for improving student completion of important college-going milestones, such as timely FAFSA filing. Tables and figures are appended.