Actually if I remember the Boston College change correctly, they weren't supplying students with email accounts, but were switching to an email forwarding servi

Actually if I remember the Boston College change correctly, they weren't supplying students with email accounts, but were switching to an email forwarding service. The idea is that an .edu address is important and necessary in more places than you think (and beyond the likes of facebook as well) and provides one way of verifying you are in some way affiliated with the .edu in question, but you don't have to check separate inboxes to do so. I know I haven't logged in to my .edu accounts in possibly years and just have them forwarded to my main email address. I can't imagine there aren't a lot of people out there doing the same. I think this restriction is a valid one provided you have a provision for manually checking users that don't have such an email address (probably a small minority).