The process to select a university to expand to Brampton and Milton has taken a slight detour in that there were only two applicants.

Deputy Premier Deb Matthews, minister of advanced education and skills development, has confirmed that the sole bidder for Brampton is Ryerson University in partnership with Sheridan College and Milton's interest came from Wilfrid Laurier University in partnership with Conestoga College.

The provincial government's deadline for expressions of interest for university expansion into Milton and Brampton was March 6.

The initial plan when the call for requests went out in January was to narrow the pool of applicants to about two or three and announce the short list in May, followed by a final decision from the ministry in the fall.

But that has now changed.

"What we're doing now is assessing those expressions of interest and then we move into some conversations with each of the teams to make sure that they're in a position to meet the pretty high standards we've set up for these two sites," Matthews told The Guardian.

"We're co-creating these very innovative post-secondary opportunities. Nobody's ever done anything quite like this before, so we're going to work with the institutions to make sure we get it right."

When the request was first announced the ministry noted that it was looking for partnerships with the community, public and private sectors, organizations and businesses.

The campuses were expected to offer STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and math) programs to undergraduates. The sites were also anticipated to hold up to 1,000 full-time students.

"We're looking for very strong partnerships with business that we're building right in to the creation of these places because we know that experiential education, including co-ops, is an increasingly important part of an education."