This study was inspired by the Indian movie 'Three idiots' and purposed to investigate the reasons behind the high rate of engineering degree programmes dropouts in India. Accordingly, factors related to academic, demographic, economic, family, future, institutional, personal, and social were derived and examined on their impacts on student attrition rate. The study addressed two fundamental questions: what factors contributed to the high dropout rate, and how could the likelihood of a student dropping out of the programme be predicted? The research involved 101 participants who were familiar with or had gone through the Indian education system. The collected data were first checked for validity and reliability using Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) with SmartPLS before conducting Multiple Linear Regression analysis to compare various factors between students who persevered and those who dropped out. The results indicated that academic, institutional, and social factors significantly influenced student attrition rates, although individual students' reasons for dropping out were unique and varied.