On its face, the appointment of Eric J. Barron as the new president of Penn State University looks like a good move.

He is a former professor and dean at Penn State and at the University of Texas. He has been president of Florida State University, a large state institution very much like Penn State, for four years — his administration being praised for raising FSU's academic and research standing. He has experience leading a university largely defined by its football program.

In all, Mr. Barron, 62, seems like a good choice to take over Penn State as it continues to recover from the Jerry Sandusky pedophilia scandal.

Mr. Barron even has some experience dealing with a similar situation. Last year, as Florida State's football program was making its march toward the national championship, star quarterback Jameis Winston was facing sexual assault allegations. Mr. Winston was not charged because of insufficient evidence, and he went on to lead the school to the national title.

In the midst of the scandal, Mr. Barron responded by saying, "It's incredibly important that an institution follow due process." Maribeth Schmidt, spokeswoman for Penn Staters for Responsible Stewardship, told The New York Times that "is encouraging for a Penn State community that has lived through the exact opposite of that the last couple years."

All of that said, there are some concerns.

One is Mr. Barron's salary, reported to be $6 million over five years — making him among the highest paid university presidents in the country. An analysis by the Chronicle of Higher Education found only four others who earned more.

An analysis was necessary because the way Mr. Barron's contract is structured makes it difficult to say to say exactly what his salary will be. His base salary is $800,000 a year, but with bonuses and other deferred payments it is expected to eclipse $1.2 million a year. For instance, he will get something called a "retention bonus" of $200,000 a year merely for staying on the job.

At a time when parents struggle to pay for college educations, and when many students will graduate with five-figure student-loan debts and diminished prospects of finding employment that will permit them to pay them off, it seems unseemly, to say the least, that the new university president will be so richly rewarded. (Annual tuition and fees for in-state students is about $17,000 a year, second-highest among the state's public universities, with only the University of Pittsburgh being more expensive.)

Barron's salary also represents a massive increase over that paid to former President Graham Spanier. Mr. Spanier's base salary was $350,959, although in his last year on the job, before resigning and facing charges in the Sandusky scandal, he took home $2.9 million, much of it severance pay and deferred salary, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported. It says something that Mr. Spanier, who left the job to face criminal charges related to his stewardship, still qualified for $1.2 million in severance pay. It's good to be president, apparently.

Also troubling is that Mr. Barron comes from a university where the perception is that football is the tail that wags the dog. Last year, he told USA Today, "I really want successful athletic programs because it's the front door. It's absolutely the front door to your university."

One thread that has run through the Sandusky scandal and the prosecution of Mr. Spanier is the deference administrators paid to the football program.

And it's also troubling that given Penn State's record for academic success among its football players, Mr. Barron comes from a school that has a dismal record in that regard. Penn State, according to NCAA figures, graduated 91 percent of its football players from 2008 to 2011, second in the Big Ten to Northwestern. During that same period, Florida State graduated a mere 55 percent of its players, tied for last in the Atlantic Coast Conference with Georgia Tech.

But perhaps Mr. Barron will earn that huge salary. He has a big job in front of him, leading Penn State out of troubled waters.

Let's hope he can do that while giving the football program a university it can be proud of.