> .edu was never intended to be used for every school in the world
There was a time when .edu domains were attributed upon simple requests as long as you were an education related institution, from wherever in the world. It only later became paid, and then restricted to US institutions in 2001 (that is 16 years after the creation of the .edu TLD, contrary to what you say). I know this because I inherited the management of such a domain for a French university directly from the person who created it back then and who told me the whole history of how they got hold of this domain name.
I insist on saying "institutions" and not "schools" because it's what I can see. Examples still in use in France includes polytechnique.edu [1] but also snes.edu, which is the website of the main workers union for middle and high school teachers in France (SNES-FSU).
Also, note that nothing in its text seems to limit the scope of the RFC 920, the one you linked, to the US.
Correct, .edu wasn't explicitly restricted to US institutions. But at that time, the entire ARPA-internet as a whole was only used by institutions that were doing something related to US government research. There wasn't really a thought to restrict domain usage for anyone, because the entire network was restricted access. The ARPA-internet wasn't open to the public, and things like websites and ISPs didn't exist. It was just a tool for researchers to use at work. The idea that .edu would ever accommodate a middle school teachers' union in France was not on anybody's radar.
There was a time when .edu domains were attributed upon simple requests as long as you were an education related institution, from wherever in the world. It only later became paid, and then restricted to US institutions in 2001 (that is 16 years after the creation of the .edu TLD, contrary to what you say). I know this because I inherited the management of such a domain for a French university directly from the person who created it back then and who told me the whole history of how they got hold of this domain name.
I insist on saying "institutions" and not "schools" because it's what I can see. Examples still in use in France includes polytechnique.edu [1] but also snes.edu, which is the website of the main workers union for middle and high school teachers in France (SNES-FSU).
Also, note that nothing in its text seems to limit the scope of the RFC 920, the one you linked, to the US.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89cole_polytechnique