> I'm pretty sure most sites do actually respect .edu equivalents in other countries. Certainly seen .ac.uk work. And for most countries it's simply .edu.<country tld>.

No, they don't.

The .edu tld is one of those areas where the US govt still exercises monopoly over a public resource (the dns space).

Here in italy for example, there is no such thing as .edu.it.

Most universities have their own regular .it dns zone.