Getting a few clients that don't want to pay much

At first, you may have to give free work or cheap work to gain the portfolio you want for yourself and your company. If you cant afford to do that then you need to simply design sites to prove your skills. Either way, if you dont do those things you will never gain any clients, respect or money because you wont have anything to prove your actual talents. I know its hard because you are a student but you need to make the sacrifice now to benefit yourself in the future. also, you should state before hand that you are doing it as a discount purely to demonstrate your skills and that your prices would raise in the next x days or x months