Well, there is "well read" and "educated" which aren't the same thing. I started reading when I was three and checked out ten books a week from the public library throughout my youth. I was well read in psychology, philosophy and such long before I went to college -- I got a PhD in a STEM field so I didn't read a lot of that stuff for classes [1] I still read a lot of that stuff.
Perhaps the reason why Stanford and Oxford students are impressed by that stuff is that they are educated but not well read which has a few angles: STEM privileged over the humanities, the ride of Dyslexia culture, and a shocking level of incuriosity in "nepo baby" professors [2] who are drawn to the profession not because of a thirst for knowledge but because it's the family business.
That would require an education in the humanities, which is low status.