Some debt advice please?

Okay, so long story short, I was an idiot in college. I fell victim to a couple of credit cards' "You've been pre-approved for a low-interest student credit card" schemes and applied for them. At first, I just used them as a way of getting some credit, making small purchases and paying the balance off in full. Then my financial situation changed, and I started needing to use them for basic needs and I wasn't able to pay off the full balance. I kept paying what I could for as long as I could, but eventually I couldn't even do that anymore. So, without any other options, I had to let the accounts become delinquent (or so I thought--I was young and confused, and still kind of am...although I like to think I've learned a very hard lesson from all this). Now, a couple of years later, I'm finally able to start figuring things out with the collections agencies. I can't afford much a month, but I want to at least start paying what little I can. How can I go about making sure I don't get taken to the cleaners when I call the collections agencies? I'm not flexible when it comes to what I can afford to pay, and I don't want them telling me that if I don't give them X amount of dollars every month they won't take anything. I'm not really concerned about them taking me to court--the balances aren't big enough for that and it would probably cost them more than they could get out of it. But I know I screwed up big time and I want to start correcting that, slowly but surely, if I can.