Before you continue, please note that .edu domain names are available if you meet the following criteria:
1.Your organization must be a 4-year degree-granting college or university.
2.Your organization may not have any other previously registered .edu domain names.
3.You will need to know your primary and secondary server hostname and IP address information.
If you meet these criteria, choose continue. If you don't meet these criteria, return to our home page, where you can search for other available domain names.
I think they have/are going to relax that rule to include commuinity colleges, I'll see if I can find a link.
<added> [educause.edu...]
You'll find pretty much everything you need to know about .edu here:
[educause.edu...]