These .edu email accounts are for real.  I received an account within 48 hours of bitcoin payment.  You get a .edu email address, and a login and student number to the college's website.  The college's email works through Google, so you get the gmail interface to send/receive email.  Because the .edu email works through gmail interface, you also get 15GB of google drive storage with the account.  The .edu account also gives you access to the college's online library, and it looks like there are some online books on there that you could read if you wanted to.

I have not tried using the .edu email address to get any discounts through any merchants yet.  However, I can vouch that the school is a real brick and mortar school, and the .edu email account you receive works nicely.