Yeah it's simply an incredibly powerful way to influence US youth in ways that are favorable to the CCP.

I don't understand how or why this is hard for people to grasp? It's no different than Radio Free Europe being secretly funded by the CIA, except it's even more powerful.

Radio Free Europe was covertly funded by the CIA into the 1970s, but your comment should say “having been” instead of “being”, because its current funding is not a secret: that comes from the US Agency for Global Media, an openly acknowledged part of the US government.