The mainstream media, particularly in the UK really picked up on this story at the time and I would say the 'pay for tuition' component played a big part in that.

There's an incomplete list of coverage he received on the site [1] but it doesn't include TV or radio, which was a fair amount too from memory.

[1] http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com/press.php

I seem to remember a lot of mailing lists discussing it, which is how I believe things went viral certainly in the 90s.