Student-loan borrowers can tell Biden what they want from his new debt relief plan. Here's how.

• Student-loan borrowers have a few days left to submit comments on Biden's new debt relief plan.
• The first public hearing on the plan will be held on Tuesday.

Student-loan borrowers didn't get a say in President Joe Biden's first plan to cancel their debt. But they do now.

On June 30, the Supreme Court struck down Biden's plan to cancel up to $20,000 in student debt for federal borrowers. By a 6-3 ruling, the high court decided that the law the president used to enact the broad debt relief — the HEROES Act of 2003 — was an overreach of authority and cannot be used to wipe out loans for millions of Americans.

But shortly after the ruling, Biden and his Education Department announced they will be trying again to cancel student debt using the Higher Education Act of 1965, which states that the department can "enforce, pay, compromise, waive, or release any right, title, claim, lien, or demand" related to federal student debt. As opposed to the HEROES Act of 2003, the Higher Education Act requires the administration to go through the negotiated rulemaking process, in which it is required to solicit public comment and hold hearings to construct its new relief proposal.

"Like I said, we have to do these public hearings," Bharat Ramamurti, deputy director of the National Economic Council, said during a June press briefing. "There has to be a certain amount of preparation to do the public hearings. You have to intake the comments that you get from the public, and then you have to decide whether to change your proposal accordingly before you do the next public hearing."

And if a student-loan borrower wants to tell Biden what they want to see in his new proposal, they have just three days left to do so. Anyone can submit a comment on the federal register through July 20 regarding anything they want the department to consider related to its new debt relief plan. So far, over 9,000 people have commented, with a batch of commenters saying that "it is essential that debt relief provides at least up to $20,000 per borrower and that it is available to everyone who has federal student loans. Families are depending on the relief already proposed: over 26 million people have applied and 16 million have been approved."

Along with the opportunity to submit public comments, the Education Department is holding the first public hearing on the new debt relief plan on Tuesday. Those who wish to tune into the hearing can register here. Following the public hearing, the department will announce the dates for negotiations with committees made up of various stakeholders formed after the hearings, and it anticipates holding three sessions at "roughly 4-week intervals," according to the federal register.

While the negotiated rulemaking process plays out, the department has made clear that payments are still resuming in October, with interest beginning to accrue again in September. To give borrowers some relief, there will be an "on-ramp" period for a year following the payment restart during which borrowers who miss payments will not be reported to credit agencies, but interest will still accrue during that time.

The department will also implement its new income-driven repayment plan, and on Friday, it announced that over 800,000 borrowers will have some or all of their loans forgiven due to a one-time account adjustment, "holding up the bargain we offered borrowers who have completed decades of repayment," Under Secretary of Education James Kvaal said in a statement.