It happened to me today, and I can say that **previously capped points don't come back.**


![reputation overview][1]

<del>I had enough to get Mortarboard, but now I won't because the last one was a downvote. I started a rep recalculation, and that changed nothing :/ Note that although it shows 273, it still only counts as 198 because Mortarboard [is for upvotes only][2].</del>


See the second screenshot after I got another upvote:

![reputation overview 2][3]


  [1]: https://i.sstatic.net/mR1Kv.png
  [2]: http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/59686/what-is-a-mortarboard/68256#68256
  [3]: https://i.sstatic.net/r97oy.png