(AP) — University of Nebraska President J.B. Milliken will be stepping down on Friday before stepping up to his next challenge as chancellor of City University of New York.

Milliken announced in January that he’d accepted the new job, leaving the Nebraska post he’s held since 2004.

The move is a continuation of the intellectual awakening Milliken underwent as a student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

When Milliken returned to the Nebraska system, it was coming off four years of double-digit tuition increases totaling 47 percent. He’s helped slow the rate of increases to an average annual rate of 4.2 percent over the last decade.

Milliken says he’s “always been a big believer that affordable access is priority No. 1 of public universities.”