The Claremont University Center is breaking apart from its incorporation with the Claremont Graduate University and becoming a new corporation called the Claremont University Consortium (CUC). The new organization will likely be formed next month, and the final split is projected to take place on July 1. All assets and employees of the Claremont University Center will be transferred to the new corporation, as will their share of the endowment.

Both the CGU and the CUC have decided that it is time to officially recognize in a corporate way what has, for some time now, been a de facto separation. The two corporations were both created in 1925, in response to Pomona President James Blaisdell’s idea to respond according to the Oxford plan, whereby the college would grow by adding new, small colleges, which allowed them to maintain the intimacy of a small college while having the resources of a larger institution. This was in response to a high level of pressure for all Southern California colleges to grow in the early 1920s.

In 1925, the CUC was created under the name of Claremont Colleges to serve as a central coordinating agency for the colleges. Its responsibility was to manage all things that the colleges shared, including the graduate institute. In order to be tax-exempt as an educational institution, the agency needed to be able to award degrees. This led to Pomona giving up their fifth-year masters program, and the creation of Claremont Graduate University. The CGU matured into a much larger endeavor than Pomona’s fifth-year program had been.

The CGU and CUC shared a Board of Fellows. As the CGU grew in size, the Board began to spend most of its time dealing with issues relevant to the Graduate University. The presidents of the colleges then realized that the CUC needed to be a separate entity with its own board. "This will enable [the CGU] to give 100% of their energy to the CGU," said President Peter Stanley.

The administrations of the five colleges began thinking about the separation four or five years ago, according to Executive Vice-President of CUC Mitch Dorger. They began to investigate it in earnest in 1996. Committees including the presidents and trustees of all five colleges were formed to evaluate the consortium and its potential. Their official recommendation, according to Dorger, was that the two separate.

Currently, the Overall Implementation Committee, chaired by Dr. Robert Tranquada of Pomona’s Board of Trustees, has set up a process whereby they review all issues that come up during the separation. Some of these issues include division of assets, impact on employees, academic accreditation, revision of the constitution that gives CUC its power, and organization of the new administration.

The CUC and CGU have been "basically operating this way for several years, keeping separate books and separate employees," said Dorger. The stickiest part of the separation was the endowment. Each contribution had to be reviewed to determine its intent. CGU’s money comes mainly from tuition, grants, student gifts, and endowments. CUC’s primary source of funds is the colleges and direct charge services like the bookstore, with a little money coming from the endowment.

Some colleges and universities have been subcontracting more and more of their campus services to private specialization firms, and many experts feel that it is an effective way to both improve service and keep costs low. When asked whether the new CUC would consider this alternative, known as outsourcing, Stanley replied that it was possible, but also too soon to tell.

"We don’t want to outsource things like the library, of course, but we could [outscore] everything else," he said. He added that cost estimates have shown that in order to have services available around the clock, it is more cost effective if the colleges own the service providers.