This paper focuses on the relationship between institutional factors and the intention of undergraduate students to withdraw from or complete their distance education courses in the Arab Open University (AOU). The model was examine on a pilot sample of 127 students and then re-examined on the field study of 587 students. Mixed paradigms were selected, the quantitative approach was, the dominant technique, using factor analysis followed by discriminant analysis. The qualitative approach used content analysis for the in-depth interviews and open ended questions to explore the problem details. This study seems to suggest that, the intention to stay in the Arab Open University (AOU) distance learning (DL) programs depends critically on the quality of instructors and the variety of technology used to support and deliver these (DL) programs .