In 2005 how did Alex Tew raise money to pay for university?

He sold pixels on the front page of his website, which subsequently became known as "The Million Dollar Homepage."

Alex Tew hailed from Cricklade, Wiltshire in England. His home page contained one million pixels in a 1000 x 1000 grid. He sold image-based links in 10 x 10 blocks at $1 per pixel. This concept proved an inspiration for a number of copycat sites. In total, some $1,037,100 was realised in gross revenue, with the final block auctioned on eBay.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Million_Dollar_Homepage