The role of trust and reputation as main components of a cognitive social capital of the organization considered. We define a cognitive social capital of the organization as the general semantic space of mutual trust which aims people at collaboration and relies on standards of equality, justice and equality, commitment to values and the purposes creates its reputation in the organizational environment and the business community. Due to the increased competition between higher education institutions assessment of a cognitive social capital of higher education institution is of the greatest interest. It is based on studying of the level of credibility of students to the high education institution, their social ideas of its reputation and accumulation by students of the personal social capital while training. The purpose of empirical research consisted in studying of a cognitive social capital of such organization as the university. It is established that the dynamics of a cognitive social capital of higher education institution consists of three stages and has U figurative form. At the first stage (1-2 courses of a bachelor degree) the cognitive social capital begins to collect. At the second stage (3-4 courses of a bachelor degree) there is a critical relation to the high education institution. At the third stage (students of a magistracy) steady indicators of a cognitive social capital - high level of confidence and enough appreciation of reputation of higher education institution are formed. The cognitive social capital gradually grows and it consists of trust of students, assessment of the status of the high education institution and social capital of the identity of students. Comparison of the level of development of a cognitive social capital in two leading higher education institutions of Russia with different rating showed the importance of its reputation components.