They leverage their land as part of the loan usually. If you have no money, your land is at least worth something.
...In the early 1960s, that African college students first came to China as part of a goodwill trip in which the government paid for the tuition of students from politically friendly areas. Though from developing countries, these students were also of the elite classes and given stipends far more than their Chinese classmates. Even so, they found themselves dissatisfied at the quality of life. The African students were much less worried about racism than they were focused on issues such as strained politics, low standard of living, and no social opportunities. Sautman notes, “the March 1962 beating of a Zanzibari by Beijing hotel attendants in a dispute over the sale of cigarettes led to sit-ins and hunger strikes by Africans, most of whom returned home.” Later on, some of the remaining African students went so far as to burn portraits of Mao in order to be deported...