As early as the dispute between Nanjing University and Nankai University, the Ministry of Education issued the Interim Measures for the Formulation of the Articles of Association of Colleges and Universities, which standardized the abbreviations of colleges and universities and clearly pointed out that Southeast University was referred to as Dongda. In other words, nationwide, "Dongda" is the abbreviation of Southeast University. However, this will not be enforced. People in the northeast will still habitually call Northeast University Dongda, while in the south, especially in Jiangsu, Southeast University will be called Dongda.

Northeastern University, located in Shenyang, Liaoning Province, is a national key university directly under the Ministry of Education of People's Republic of China (PRC). It is a national "double-class" construction university, and the first batch of "2 1 1 Project" and "985 Project" in China. /kloc-0 changed its name to northeastern university in March, 1993. 1987, northeastern university Qinhuangdao branch was established in Qinhuangdao city, Hebei province. 1997, the former Shenyang Gold Institute was merged into Northeastern University.

Southeast University, headquartered in Nanjing, is a national key university directly under the Ministry of Education of People's Republic of China (PRC), and the central government directly under the deputy ministerial system. It is a national "double first-class", "985 Project" and "2 1 1 Project" key construction university. 1988 was renamed Southeast University. In 2000, it merged with the former Nanjing Railway Medical College, Nanjing Jiaotong University and Nanjing Geological School to form a new Southeast University.