thumb|left|Construction of Eleanor Joy Toll Hall at Scripps,
The start of the Claremont Colleges came in 1925 with the addition of a graduate school, now known as Claremont Graduate University. The college was originally known as Claremont College and began to function in 1927. Scripps College allowed Ellen Browning Scripps to put-forth her plan of a school which offered women access to a higher education, to better their professional careers and to better their personal lives. Scripps College officially opened in 1927. CMC was formed as a fully male undergraduate school until women were admitted in 1976. HMC was founded by Harvey Seeley Mudd, a former chairman of the Board of Fellows of Claremont College. Pitzer was founded as a college for woman focusing on the social sciences. KGI was founded in 1997 after a $50 million donation from W.M. Keck Foundation. Alongside the institutions, Claremont College Services was founded on July 1, 2000. The Claremont College Services provides educational support to all the institutions in the consortium. A report commissioned for the colleges estimated that the consortium had a regional economic impact of $706.8 million during the 2016–2017 academic year.
Reputation and rankings
Admission to the Claremont Colleges is considered highly selective. According to the American Liberal Arts College rankings released by U.S. News & World Report in fall 2021, the "5Cs" were ranked among the top 35 liberal arts colleges in the United States: Pomona College (#3), Claremont McKenna College (#9), Harvey Mudd College (#29), Scripps College (#33), and Pitzer College (#33). Additionally, all of the undergraduate colleges are categorized as "Most Selective". Forbes ranked the 5C's among the top 60 undergraduate colleges (including universities and military academies) in the nation and within the top 25 liberal arts colleges for its 2017 report: Pomona College (#10 overall, #1 LAC), Claremont McKenna College (#11 overall, #2 LAC), Harvey Mudd College (#18 overall, #5 LAC), Scripps College (#43 overall, #16 LAC), and Pitzer College (#59 overall, #23 LAC). In 2025, Niche listed the top 3 liberal arts colleges in the United States as Harvey Mudd College (#1), Pomona College (#2), and Claremont McKenna College (#3). U.S. News & World Report also releases individual graduate program rankings for the Claremont Graduate University, with several of its programs ranking in the top tier of graduate programs nationwide.
Shared facilities, programs, and resources
thumb|Honnold Library
Each college is independent in that students receive their degrees from the one college in which they are enrolled, and administration and admissions departments are independent. The seven-institution Claremont Colleges system is supported by The Claremont Colleges Services (TCCS), which provides centralized services, such as a library, student health, financial and human resources, telecommunications, risk management, real estate, physical plant maintenance, and other services, for those colleges.
<section begin="library holdings" />The Claremont Colleges Library (also known as Honnold/Mudd Library) holds more than items , of which are physical and are digital.<section end="library holdings" />
left|thumb|The Tranquada Student Services Center
Other shared facilities include Campus Safety, the Tranquada Student Services Center (which houses Baxter Medical Center, Monsour Counseling Center, and the Health Education Outreach), McAlister Center (home of the Office of the Chaplains and the Claremont Card Center), EmPOWER Center (which works to address sexual violence), the Huntley Bookstore, all dining facilities, and several sports facilities. <section begin="Hive" />The Sontag Center for Collaborative Creativity, colloquially termed "the Hive", was established in 2015 to support creative learning.<section end="Hive" /> The Claremont Colleges Library is an example of the level of cooperation in terms of support services. The size of the library collection ranks third among the private institutions in California, behind only Stanford and USC.
Shared academic departments include the Intercollegiate Women's Studies Center, the Intercollegiate Department of Chicano Studies, the Intercollegiate Department of Asian American Studies, the Intercollegiate Department of Africana Studies (formerly Black Studies), the Intercollegiate Department of Religious Studies, the Intercollegiate Department of Media Studies, and the Five-College Theater Department. In January 2008, the Claremont Colleges also formed the Claremont Center for the Mathematical Sciences, which is led by the Claremont Graduate University and is a collaborative center for faculty members working in mathematics.
Shared intercollegiate programs include the European Union Center of California, the Chicano/Latino Student Affairs Center, the Office of Black Student Affairs, the Office of the Chaplains, Hillel, and the Queer Resource Center.
left|thumb|[[Bernard Field Station, with the San Gabriel Mountains in the background]]
In addition, Pitzer College and Scripps College share a single science program, the Department of Natural Sciences. Many research projects and courses use the Robert J. Bernard Field Station, an natural area which consists principally of the rare Coastal Sage Scrub ecosystem. Since 2024, the Bernard Field Station has been home to the FLUXNET site US-BFS.
The Claremont Colleges have been praised by higher education experts for their high level of cooperation and the overall success of their model, They have influenced the operations of other consortia and collegiate universities, but their model remains unique with few other institutions operating comparably.
<section begin=Media />There are several media organizations at the Claremont Colleges, the largest of which is The Student Life, the oldest college newspaper in Southern California. It publishes a weekly print edition as well as online content.