At the risk of getting philosophical, you'll get through this. You'll figure out a solution. It may not be the plan you originally had, but you'll figure out a plan.
More practically, you mentioned you got your scores from FICO. There should be an indication as to what the positive and negative factors in your score are. That might give you some insight into why your score is what it is.
One thing that may be holding you down is average age of accounts. If you don't have a very long credit history, that works against you. If, by any chance, you know someone, perhaps a parent or a sibling, who has a old credit card, if you were to become an authorized user on that card, you would gain its age of account. Other than that, only time will really change average age of accounts.
The old collections are not good, but if they're old, that's to the positive, in that as negative items age, the negative effect is diminished.
Finally, this link was awesome! http://www.fha.com/lending_limits_state.cfm?state= TEXAS. I used it to look up where I live, Maryland. Very enlightening.
Good luck.
