The goal of higher education institutions is to provide quality education to students. Predicting academic success and early intervention to help at-risk students is an important task for this purpose. This talk explores the possibilities of applying machine learning in developing predictive models of academic performance. What factors lead to success at university? Are there differences between students of different generations? Answers are given by applying machine learning algorithms to a data set of 400 students of three generations of IT studies. The results show differences between students with regard to student responsibility and regularity of class attendance and great potential of applying machine learning in developing predictive models.