Best answer
There is so much horrible misinformation in this thread.
EDU and GOV links do not carry any special value. They are seen the same as any other link.
Anyone selling or offering you EDU or GOV links is either incompetent or a scammer.
Some EDU and GOV websites certainly have a lot of authority, however those sites are almost never going to link to you off a page that matters. For example, a lot of the scammers offering EDU links are simply offering links off of student blogs that students get for free at their school. Those pages have zero authority. The links are utterly worthless.
Now if Harvard wanted to link to you for some reason off of one of their top-level pages, sure, that would be a valuable link. They aren't going to do that though.
TLDR; EDU and GOV links have the exact same value as .com, .net, .org, .info, etc. links.
Anyone that says otherwise is lying to you.